City Council-Workshop — Nov 20, 2024

Good evening and welcome. The Wednesday, November 20th, 2024, City of Plantation Code Enforcement Workshop is now called to order at 5 p.m. Ms. Beggaro, please call the roll. Councilmember Anderson. Here. Councilmember Andreu. Here. Mr. Fadgen. Here. Councilmember Reinstein. Here. Mayor Sortel. Here. City Attorney Ezra. Here. Thank you. Mayor. First off, President Fadgen, that was an excellent gavel bang. I know it might be your last one for a while, but we're done. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. Okay. Okay. That's a good. I'm just running ahead of time. You got them on there. So this is something that we've been working on all summer, in fact, trying to figure out the best parts of code enforcement. What does one group do? What does another group do? It's been a point of emphasis for me. And you guys, like you said, I'm really excited that you want to have a workshop to talk about this because we're at a point where we could use some guidance. What can we do better? You guys deal with residents all the time. You hear different things, this and that, about code enforcement. Well, we want to get you all to know what we're doing and what we're not. And if you have suggestions on changing policy, that's what we're going to look at. So I'm excited. Another one there? How did this start? So anecdotally, I met a guy who just talked about code enforcement. We're behind on this. We needed to do that. Me, him and Brian Law hopped in the car. We drove around much of Western Broward and he pointed out things. What about this? Why can't we do this? Who does this? And neither Brian nor I could answer very well. So it was kind of an aha moment where we said, okay, we need to get together and see what's covered. And we have some spots that are missing. I was going to bring him up to almost testify, but he's quite a talker and we wouldn't get everything else done that we want to. Yeah, exactly. So what problems have we seen? Obviously, people have problems with trash being left out too soon, too early, building problems. You know, and it's different by area too, right? There are different problems in the acres than we have out east. So what are we working on? The first thing we're working on is knowing what each other one does. It was interesting in the meetings to have everybody in the same room, say from police to building, but they say, oh, you do that part, we do that part. And along the way, we've realized we need to explore how everything's being paid for. There was a hypothesis that too much of the burden was placed on building. So Anna stepped in and we can talk about that. That's coming up. What do we want out of this workshop? That's on you guys. I presume we're looking for guidance and advice and thoughts and ways to make it better. You guys, that's what you bring anyway all the time. So, and if you have more to it, then great. If it's a change in policy, if it's a change in, in the way we have a code written, you know, that's on the table. Um, yeah, so that's, I've talked about that, that we've been trying to talk about everybody. You got these guys, these tonight, police building. It's more dramatic when you roll them out like that, isn't it? Planning, finance, and, um, my suggestion, you can do, you can do what you want, but I, I would almost have a 15, 20 minute time cut off for each category so you don't get burned by going too deep into one or the other. Um, you can do long discussions after. A lot of the stuff we're going through, so a lot of times I use the rule of if it's a one sentence question, ask it now. We'll give you a two sentence answer and the long things, we could wait till the end of that department's presentation. I think it'd go better that way. So go about 15 minutes for each presentation and then do, uh, Q and A at the end. Yeah, I don't have anything else to add after this, but you guys will have questions and everything. Okay. So just roughly 15 to 20. Keep track of it. Yeah. Like I said, okay, next one. Ooh, that one. Yeah. And, and my point is if, if we had trouble internally sorting out whose job it is, imagine how it is with the public. You get calls all the time from people saying, oh, is that my job? And, and it bounces all over. So that's something we really want to clean up. And, uh, so let's see what everybody's doing. They'll present and, uh, I'm really excited. I'm really excited. Thank you all. Thanks to Alpert and everybody for putting the whole thing together. Obviously they did the work. Here we go. Good evening. Hi, I'm Shaquille Robinson, and I'm the code enforcement manager. I will do a brief overview of our department and our responsibilities. Uh, so obviously the purpose of code enforcement is that my staff is meant to go out into community, assist residents and business owners with knowing and learning what our city codes are. What we are expecting for them to do within our city so that we can keep our city looking great. All right. The way our chain of command is in our department is we obviously follow, um, the chief of police. Um, then from there we have deputy chief, it's gonna be chief Harrison, then deputy chief Schlegel. Our captain is Seymour Council. Then it's myself. I have a senior, um, code inspector, um, Mr. Hernandez. He'll be up here later. And then we have, uh, nine code inspectors. Uh, each of the inspectors are assigned to their own zones. We have, um, several that do residential. And then we have three, let's give me two that really are doing commercial properties east and west and the one specific additional one that does gateway. Um, we are all in the process. Well, there's someone still in the process of becoming certified, but the rest of us are certified, um, code enforcement, um, inspectors through the state of Florida, through the Florida association of code enforcement. And, um, from there, I'm going to talk about some of the general responsibilities that we have, um, within our department. One of the things that we have is, and let me just start from here. I think most of us know what the general process is for citing someone and bringing them to a hearing, but I'll go briefly over that. All right. So the inspectors go out into their zones and they have a responsibility to either warn someone verbally or in writing. Um, we can also mail something, call the courtesy letter out to the property owner, letting them know what their violations are. Okay. Um, obviously the inspectors will, they can observe the violations as well as respond to complaints from residents or just citizens driving through our city. Okay. Um, once they do that, they pass the warning stage, then they're going to issue a note. So I want to move the table forward because you have that table talking about the warning stages and the right there. Yes. So we can do that and then we'll come back because that's really the, the main thing that starts our whole process. Okay. So this table talks about all of these things, the warning stage being a verbal courtesy letter, the door hanger is what's written on, um, on scene or, you know, on the site. Um, if the person does not correct those violations, then we issue what's called a notice of violation. Um, 90% of the time it's going to be a notice of violation. That's going to schedule the property owner for a magistrate hearing. And then to kind of fast forward through some of these other things, which I'll explain in a second. Um, once they go to the hearing and the magistrate finds that the person is in violation of the city code, they issue a final order. After they've issued the final order and the inspectors, you know, they follow up by doing their inspections. Then they will, if the person has not corrected those violations, they issue another notice, call the notice to confirm fine and schedule the person for another hearing. But at that point, that's the second hearing. And at that final hearing, if they're issued an order imposing, um, a final lien that the magistrate, if they felt like the person was still in violation, they not necessarily deserve the lien, but that if they were in violation, they're going to now have a recorded lien on their property. That is how most of our cases work. Sometimes you're going to have, um, recurrence violations, which those particularly are going to be cases where the person is someone who has violated that session of code previously. And if the, if this next violation is within five years, we issue notice of recurrence. So that's another avenue that we go. Additionally, we have notice of repeat violations. So if the person has already gone to a hearing previously and been found in violation by a special magistrate for that violation, we will issue a notice of repeat violation and then bring them forward again. The difference with that one is that now the person can have a fine on them for, um, $500 a day. So, you know, for that violation. So that's the general overview of all of our cases. Okay. So from there, uh, we do every so often additional, um, processes called abatements, which you all do get because you, um, hear them at the city council meetings. Sometimes we don't do those very often, but that is basically the city paying for the work to be completed on a property that has, um, a violation that we're not either getting any kind of, um, assistance from the property owner or the property is vacant or, you know, something else has happened with that property and the city is, you know, basically tired of, you know, the residents are tired of looking at it and then we want to help the neighborhood. So, um, we've done two, um, only two this year so far and that was both of them were on one property. Um, additionally, I want to go into another thing that we do is special risk property registration, uh, which is a citing for, um, properties that are under the eye of a bank. Um, you know, there's some sort of foreclosure process. The inspectors will cite those properties, um, send that out to the, to the bank or whoever the, um, excuse me, the, the company is responsible for the maintenance of that property and request that they registered a property with the city. There's a $250 fee that they have to pay and then they register that property. They sent us, um, a registration form and the payment which we forward obviously to our finance department. Now, when we mentioned, um, before about, or when I mentioned before about, uh, the inspectors going out and responding to complaints throughout the city, one of the things that we have going on are anonymous complaints. Obviously that used to be more frequent that we would allow anonymous complaints, but we no longer, um, you know, per state statute, we no longer allow every resident to just call or citizen to call the office for any type of complaint, um, and make it anonymously. Now residents and citizens are required to make those complaints for, um, you know, if it's something like a dirty, um, if it's a dirty roof, it's not a life safety issue. So therefore they would be required to provide their name and address versus someone having an unsecured pool. Now they can go ahead and make that complaint anonymously. So, um, that is one of the things that we deal with and I apologize because I know I'm kind of all over the overview here, but I'm trying to go in an order of what makes sense that we deal with on a regular basis. Okay. So, uh, I already mentioned about the abatements. Um, I wanted to move into talking about the dangerous dogs and you will see that I provided a, an overview of the dangerous dog process. Generally what happens there is the road patrol will go out to a dangerous dog complaint. Um, you know, they make a report, they forward it over to me. I review the report and I feel like it meets the statutes guidelines of if it's one bite to a person and it's either severe enough or the person felt like they were threatened with that dog approaching them. It meets the criteria to bring that case forward to magistrate hearing. Another, um, part of that is that if a dog bit two or more other animals, we can also bring that case, um, to the special magistrate. So the first part of this is we give a notice to the, um, dog owner giving them a couple of days to decide if they want to have the hearing or if they want to remove the dog from the city, um, or they want to register the dog with the city. And sometimes they choose to have a hearing. Sometimes they choose to remove the dog, which choosing to remove the dog is probably one of the easiest things that people do for our benefit, but obviously not for their own. Um, we are, I'm going to fast forward something that you'll see in the future that we are looking at this thing, just dog ordinance right now and, um, possibly rewriting it for your review in the future. Uh, and that is so that we can, when the inspector goes out and initially gives this door hanger, telling them to make a decision on these three things. If they come to the hearing, the magistrate has to decide on that first hearing whether or not the dog is dangerous or not. If the dog, if the magistrate doesn't find that the dog is dangerous, the case is closed. If they do find it as dangerous, then they have several things that they have to do, which, um, is either to register the dog. Again, there's a list of criteria for registering the dog and, or removing the dog from the city. Uh, at that point, if they don't remove the dog from the city or if they don't register, again, we would go ahead at this point and now issue an actual notice of hearing, which is a little separate from the first hearing. This next one basically says that they are in violation of the dangerous dog because they've already attended the first hearing and the magistrate has already deemed the dog to be dangerous. So this is obviously where things can get a little confusing for the dog owner. Um, so we bring them back for the second hearing and that second hearing is you have to remove the dog from the city. You have to register your dog. You have so many days or you're going to have a fine of X amount per day. At that point, we're now following the rest of the code enforcement process. They don't correct it. We bring it back for the final hearing to, um, impose the final lien. So again, that will be coming in the future for review. Um, just to make some changes to how we're, um, bringing those cases, um, to the special magistrate. Then we move on to civil violation ticket process. Now, we admittedly don't use this process probably enough. Uh, one of the reasons, well, I was going to process and I'll tell you why we don't really use it enough. The civil violation ticket process, the inspector has the option of going out into the neighborhood and issuing a warning ticket. It can be for, um, any, any one of the violations in our city codes. Most of the ticket amounts, if we get to that point or $25, the only ones that is, I would say not necessarily worth using the ticket for, but it is worth using the ticket for is for when people have bulk out early in those type of violations. Those are higher tickets. Those are $125. It's just saying, you know, we don't want our streets full with trash all the time. Please stop. Please follow, you know, our, our book schedule. Um, so the ticket process does help in that aspect, but ticketing someone for, um, you know, having a overgrown grass for $25 is not what we're looking, you know, that there's not the best use of this process at that point. So just keep that in mind if I ask for something in the future. All right. So that process again follows with them issuing a warning, then a ticket, um, them having to go to the magistrate's hearings as well. They can choose to contest or, um, you know, they can choose to contest the ticket, which obviously is them to fight it. If they contest the ticket and they lose, it's an additional fee added to the ticket. If they contest the ticket and, you know, essentially win, there's no added fee and that ticket will, um, be voided. Uh, one of the other things that we are currently doing for our records department are addressing alarm permit violations. So when alarms go off in the city, this is not for firearms. It's just strictly burglar alarms. When they go off in the city and our records department get noticed that the person doesn't have a, a register alarm with them. Uh, they send out their letter to the person. If they don't respond to that, they then send it over to us. And from there, we have to follow our process, which is, you know, doing the warning again, asking the persons to go ahead and register these alarm permits with the records department. And then we continue from there. There aren't that many cases that are actually running liens for something quite like this. The majority of time is just finding the persons that are actually, um, either if it's a tenant on the property or if it's a property owner that doesn't even realize that they had an alarm still, that's usually, um, the issue. And that usually gets rectified, but not before we go to a hearing, but still. Another process that we follow are temporary storage structures. Um, so when building apartment has a permit out there for a temporary storage structure, when that permit is up for aspiration, then, um, the inspector has to go by and verify that the temporary storage structure has been removed from the property. If they do, then we close that case, um, excuse me, close that permit. If they don't, then we go ahead and initiate our own code case to have the person register the pod, um, the temporary storage structure with, um, building apartment. And that is one of the times where we're actually working with building, um, directly if there's any issues with that permit that's been issued. And I've already, um, blessed you have already gone over to special risk properties. And then I'm going to lead into Inspector Hernandez and coming up here to talk to you about some further things. And before I do, um, when we get to, uh, the business tax receipts, I did want to mention for the home-based businesses on here that we have, um, several property owners now that have business at their home. I mean, I think we're probably aware that 2021, when we had the anonymous complaint, um, statute come through and we had the home-based business statute. Now there's a lot of people that brought their business home. So one, I put this under obstacles, um, and that's because we're having to basically understand that people need to have their business at home. They need to make a living, but also they need to follow the code. So we're having some back and forth with commercial vehicles, that sort of, um, issue. Obviously commercial vehicles can't be left at the home unless they're in a carport or garage. So they're having to find other locations to take those vehicles. Um, and I'm going to leave from there to Inspector Hernandez who can speak on some of the issues that we're having with the commercial properties and those very issues. Do you all have any questions right now for me? Okay. I'm sorry, question. I thought we were going to do it at the end. Do you want to try it? We can take questions. Um, I got to think about this. Council member Reinstein. I changed the, uh, thank you very much. Um, I really appreciate, uh, this workshop. It's something that, and we want to try to be, I know I get it. Um, but I'm, it's something we have been asking for, for a number of times. So we appreciate you being here. Um, so a couple of questions specific as to what you presented, Ms. Robinson is that, um, when looking at the basic code enforcement process versus the civil violation ticket process, and I heard you say that, um, you know, you, you try not to do the civil violation ticket process, unless you have to, right, in terms of the, the fines. Right. When it, do we have written guidelines from when the basic code enforcement process is used versus the civil violation ticket process? No, we do not. There, there are two, the civil violation ticket process is a supplemental process that we have the option to use or not. So there, so there's no guidelines anywhere so that if a resident wanted to see, hey, why did my, why did I get the, the warning and my neighbor got a fine, uh, fine. There's nothing that guides you on that. No, there's, there's no specific guidelines for, for choosing to use that. Um, generally what I have the inspectors do is they're using those civil violation tickets for their boat violations. And that's like, again, that's because of people needing to keep their streets clean. So. Okay. And when, when looking at the basic code enforcement process, um, in the warning stage where you have the, um, verbal courtesy letter door hanger, um, is there any type of guideline as to how to, I guess, structure the verbal warning? And I say that because I've heard from some residents where they were appreciative if they got a verbal warning, but they didn't actually understand what the verbal warning was. Um, and the, the, whether, whoever's fault that is, doesn't matter. It's just whether there's a, a process or some, some structure so that, you know, if, uh, when a resident gets the warning that, um, there's clarity so that when you come back with a courtesy letter, they're not saying, well, that wasn't what I heard in the verbal warning. So how's that process? So that process is me guiding my staff to, if you're going to speak to someone, which I, 100% of the time, I always tell them, get out the car and knock on the door because there's nothing worse than just driving by taking a photograph, sending something in mail that they don't understand. So get out the car, knock on the door, speak to the person, you know, you can hand them a door hanger, and then you can go back to the office and clarify more if need be in a courtesy letter back to that person, or you can speak to them, go back to the office, make a courtesy letter and bring that back out to them and discuss it in detail at that time. Would it be helpful at all for it to, instead of those steps being verbal, courtesy letter, door hanger, that maybe it's first courtesy letter, second courtesy letter? I mean, if you want to give them those additional options, but that there's no question as to what you specifically told the resident, would that be helpful for your process? Right. So I actually understand now where that issue is. So we actually, the door hanger, courtesy letter, and the verbal, they're not separate. There is, I should have put them more on the same line. Okay. Because they have the options of doing one of them. They can do all three at the, at the same time, basically. So I can go out to you, knock on your door, speak to you about it, write you a door hanger and say, this is what, you know, we discussed. These are sections of the code. If you want to go ahead and, you know, go online and read about these, when I get back to the office, I'm going to go ahead and do a courtesy letter. I'm going to mail that out to you. I'm going to bring it back out to you. So they're actually all in the same line, not necessarily separate. So no one is going and just doing a verbal warning to anyone. They know that I request that they go ahead and speak to people and then also mail something at the same time, same day. Just the final one on that one issue is that, so there's no specific guideline as to when you should only do the verbal or when you should also add the door hanger. This is purely at the discretion of the, of the officer as to what fits best for the situation. We can say it's their discretion, but it's really what I don't want them to do. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. They have to do the verbal and then, um, actually send something to them. Council member Andrea. Um, two quick questions. One, have we improved our communication with our schools? Cause I know we had that issue with the schools getting the door hangers and kind of ignoring it. So how are we handling that with the alarms? Let me be more specific with their, with their alarms, their alarm permits. Well, that is still floating out there somewhere, unfortunately. So we actually, those were all done, um, by courtesy letters, phone calls, speaking to, um, people, staff at the schools. But, um, there has been additional conversations regarding the alarms. But right now that is something more that the chief can probably speak on. Okay. I just want to make sure this won't happen again next year. So if we have a process. All our schools are in compliance with the exception of one. Uh, and I checked with, um, High. No, no, I, I, one of our elementary schools. Oh, okay. But, uh, and that was a big to do. I did check with finance. Finance did a, an audit on that. And it was determined that just one of the schools at this point, uh, you don't want to say which one that's a problem though, because it's probably been a few months. Yes. So we, we have made, I know Mr. Menomaker, myself have made several, um, had several conversations with people, uh, to try to get that done. Uh, so far it, to my knowledge, it hasn't been, uh, that's the only school that hasn't complied. Okay. Everybody else has. I'll circle back with Mr. If I could add real quick, you're doing a great job by the way. Our goal in code enforcement is compliance. And that's why you try to do that warning or that verbal or that written in order to get the compliance. And as you can see, this is a long process. And all along that process, at any time, if they come into compliance, case closed. So I just wanted to add that. And then I just have one other quick one regarding the local business tax receipt. So I think I spoke to Mr. Holmes about this too, a few months back. But why do we have, and I think it's unique to our ordinance and maybe something that we as a council need to amend. The occup, if somebody has an occupational license, but they're not running a home business. So I'll use my own family member. So he's an electrical contractor, but he's not running his own business. He needs to get a local business tax receipt from the city of plantation. That's odd to me. That is a great Dan Holmes question. Okay. I'll save it for Mr. Holmes. Thank you. And I'll add about the alarms. They do, everyone gets a letter from records department first, at least 30 days before we ever see that violation from them. So, okay. Okay. I'm going to try to be very quick. Can we put up that basic code enforcement process? Lesson. Yes. Can you just give a real quick time frame for each of these categories? So from identification of the, of the code violation to us issuing a verbal to, we get all the way down to the last lien, like 14 days to get to the door hanger, whatever it is. Can you kind of give us that, that time frame? Okay. So that may be based off of the type of violation. So if I'm coming to you and I say that your grass is overgrown, I'm going to give you 10 days to cut your grass. I'd say something a little bit more heavier than that, because I understand like. Okay. So say something like an unsecured pool that I'm telling you, you have to get a fence installed because your fence is completely in disrepair. Something like that. I'm going to give you 30 days to see. I want to see that you either are contacted a contractor. I want to see that you've made something, some sort of action. We do require within 30, um, excuse me, three days. You can tell them that. Jesus, it's like Congress turning our advice in the air. It's like, be careful. Where are you going? Whitney was saying the warning is not always required, so we, we like to give warnings just to have a fair play on everything. But, uh, when it comes to the unsecured pool, something like that, we, we will give it about three days to, for them to put in a temporary safety barrier up, which is just maybe an orange mesh or something so that it's a visual, um, safety issue. Uh, from there, we're going to give 30 days. That includes the three days, uh, for them to start some sort of process. Some, you know, some copies. So at the end of 30 days, we get into the formal notice process? Sometimes we do. Sometimes we're not quite there yet. So it's kind of assessing the situation and seeing what kind of good faith that they're operating in to get us into compliance. We can give them a little bit more leeway if we actually can believe that they're doing actionable, to correct the thing. Yes. Okay. Um, so when we get to the lien, um, lien's being recorded. I was told, I was at a magistrate meeting, they confirmed the fine, they, they get the lien, um, and the, and the problem's still there. And I was told, and I think you might have told me this, oh, they're a sovereign citizen. So at what point do we take action on that lien? You probably know what I'm talking about. I do. So do they just get, they sit out there forever and the property looks like hell and the violation is still there? Like, when do we take action at that point? Like, what kind of period of time has to pass? It could be something that if the city looked to foreclose on it, they, it may be something I can tell administration about. So it's really just a decision that we make to take action on it? As far as foreclosure, yes. Um, other than that, yes, that, that fine is running for quite some time. So is there any other contact once the liens and then we just see, okay, the lien has accumulated to a half a million dollars. It's time to foreclose. Is, are we trying to do anything after the lien is filed? Well, so the only thing is that the city can't foreclose on a homestead property. Right. And the property that we're talking about now, granted the property owner isn't necessarily the one who caused the issue. However, the person that lives there, another, you know, person that lives there, um, it is, we're not quite sure the relationship. Okay. Well, I don't want to get, I don't want to get too deep. So my last question is, so we get an anonymous complaint because we're obviously going to get anonymous complaints. Can we send a courtesy letter saying we got this anonymous complaint state law says we can't pursue this, but Hey, you're making your neighbors irritated. Can you take, you know, we don't, um, because I can, I, I would say that is probably more of a quaint thing, but I might, my take, my take on it is this. I am responsible for what my inspectors put out there. And if I am not willing for them to take that complaint, if it's not under good faith, then no. Okay. Um, council member Horland, and I'm sorry, I went too long. If you could be very, very verbose, I'll be as brief as I can. Ms. Robinson, it's nice to see you. Um, I wanted to ask you a question when I met with you and then captain Khalil, uh, shortly after the pandemic, one of the frustrations with the commercial businesses was everyone's free and loose with the snipe signs. And if you remember, the conversation we had is we were talking about coordination between your department and PNZ that I felt that business tax license should be providing you with a better contact list or a contact list. Has that been coordinated? Because I think that's what our frustration sometimes too is with code is the coordination between, uh, the departments. Okay. So, um, we are working better with all the departments. Okay. Um, multiple topics definitely being shared. I will say that, um, we have our lane of what we're supposed to do and every department has their own, um, you know, responsibilities, so. Sure, but especially with the signs because we still see some businesses violating that and it's nobody's fault that the coordination isn't there. I was just saying it seemed easy to me to provide your department with a list because I think contact for some of the businesses was an issue at that point and getting them into compliance. Yes. So now I will say that with, uh, having the commercial property inspectors and get the gateway inspector, they can go in and they look at the business tax receipts. They can look up contact information in there if they need to reach out to someone. So that is available for them to see. And we can work that out on our own, on our side, um, because the inspectors are out there in the field and they're already walking into these businesses, shaking hands with the tenants and, you know, business owners. So they can, um, they are able to kind of coordinate those relationships, uh, already. So you feel there's been an improvement since we last spoke about that? I believe that. I believe, yes. I believe that there has been some improvement and some car will speak on the, all the commercial properties. So, okay. And I'm not going to go into details, but I have a Park East, uh, situation that arose last night that I'm going to call you about tomorrow. Okay. No problem. All right. All right. Thank you. Uh, we totally blew that budget. Um, who's, who's next? And let's be brief with our questions. So, uh, Inspector Hernan, then we'll come up now. And I did want to just give you a final answer about the, um, the timeframe for the cases. Okay. I would say on a very, I won't say easy case, but something that's really cut and dry, maybe three months, um, three or four months for a, you know, slow case. Uh, it can be up to two, maybe a year and a half or two years, obviously, sometimes to get to the fine status for a more lingering case. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. All right. Talk fast. No pressure. Hello, everyone. My name is Samcar Hernananda, and I'm the senior code enforcement inspector. Um, I've been doing code enforcement implementation for the last 10 years, and I find it interesting, just so you know. Um, I'm going to kind of give you a preview of what I do. Um, it ties into what Shaquilla just said, um, on how this process all works. Um, my job is right now a commercial inspector. I also do a lot of training with our additional inspectors. And, um, that's something that I wanted to touch on before I get into the commercial section. So based on the amount of inspectors that we have, um, every inspector, based on the last census report, deals with over 13,000 residents per inspector. So you have to imagine that the inspector will not be able to capture all of the violations within a community or within a subdivision at the same time. Um, so that's something that people generally don't understand. I mean, they're one person with 13, over 13,000 people to deal with. So that's something to keep in mind. Um, definitely. Um, however, during that process, we treat everyone with the same through the same formula or the same processes used with every property, whether it's commercial or residential. And what that means is that if we get a complaint, let's say for a boat in a driveway, the way that I treat or I trained the inspectors is that when we go to that property, we're going to cite everything that we see existing at that time. We're just not going for the boat at that property. So let's say they have a boat at the property. They have an unsecured pool. They have a broken window or broken fence and a dirty sidewalk. We will cite all five of those things at that time. So what that does is that it improves our efficiency and it reduces the inspector having to go back to that property for something that existed while they were there already. Because one of the, I guess, between one of the most common things that we deal with on is backlash from the residents. And there's a lot of complaints about us being selective. We're racist. We're picking on people. Why did my neighbor not get cited for the same thing? So there's a lot of gray areas and there's a lot of rumors and there's a lot of hard feelings that go against code enforcement. But I think if they understand our process, they will see that it is a fair process that gets distributed to everyone. Well, I've had that complaint and then I've asked for all of the code violations that were assessed or cited. And usually it's a big cluster in the neighborhood. So yeah, so that's part of what we do to try to eliminate the, you know, the constantly having to go back to a resident. Because yes, then in that case, the resident will feel that yes, we're picking on them only, we're not going to another house. But so we want to make one point of contact if we can, tell them everything that's wrong at the time of the visit. So hopefully we don't have to go back there. They fixed everything so we can move on to other problems or other properties in the neighborhood. We also use a method that if the inspector is doing a observation, they're just not going to observe the violation on one property alone on that street. We may capture two or three or four properties at that same time. So remember, we are limited by time as well as documentation purposes. So there are times where an inspector has a complaint on one house on the property. Yes, that's based off of a complaint. You know, during the day, they may not have time to site other houses in the area. But if they're doing an observation where the inspector is, okay, I'm going down the street and I'm just not going to stop at this one person's house. So we're going to stop at that house, the one next door and the one in front of that, as much as we can to try to, again, paint everyone with the same brush. And even my coworkers and, you know, employees within the city get cited. So, you know, there is no real special treatment for anyone with the process. And they all get consistent timeframes to correct it. We try to be as clear as possible with what they need exactly to do with correction. We're not a homeowners association, but we also try to tell them the least intrusive way to get the violation corrected or the least expensive way to get the violation corrected. So that, I think it's a very fair process for the residents. But again, you will still get the feedback that, you know, you're picking on me or you're harassing me. But I think if they know how we approached it, that will change their perspective. So going on to commercial properties, there's two sections that we started right now. One section, if you go to the map, is actually west of Pine Island and that stretches over to west of University towards Sunshine City. And the other section is east of that, excluding the Gateway Plaza. So we have one inspector per zone for those areas. The Gateway section has its individual inspector that addresses those. And I think she started about a year ago. And in commercial inspections, we follow the same process as we will in residential, where we have to identify the violation. We have to give them the time to correct it. And we also have to tell them the corrective actions or what is needed to be done to correct it. Also keep in mind that whenever you're dealing with a commercial property, you're dealing with several parties. You're dealing with the business owner, you're dealing with the property owner, and you're dealing with a property manager. Generally, you have three items. You may also have another person or they may hire a contractor. So now you have to explain the same thing to four different people. So it is a little time consuming. So I wanted to touch on some of the common code violations that we see out there. One of the biggest ones being is the local business tax receipts for a lot of businesses. Whenever we're doing a commercial inspection, we also have access to check to see if that business has a valid local business tax receipt. We find some of the businesses they have either never registered with the city or never obtained the LBTR or their local business tax receipt was not renewed and it's either in delinquent status or it has been expired. So in addition to whatever rules we were inspecting for, we will add that violation to our list to get them in order to register with the city and obtain their local business tax receipt. Another item is the garbage overflows. This is usually due to a business that has a small dumpster or their service is not being picked up frequently enough and that usually leads to garbage overflows and trash around the dumpster enclosure. Unfortunately, there are people in the city that find these dumpsters and they dump their garbage there because they feel it's a public dumpster. So that's something that we constantly are looking at. We also deal a lot with trash litter and debris, particularly in high use areas such as gas stations, pharmacies, anything that has a high volume of traffic. For some reason, you know, people throw out litter and the landscaping companies that come out there, a lot of places I find they do a great job cleaning the parking lots, but they use the blowers and everything is blown into the hedges. So even though the parking lot looks great, we have another issue where all of that soda bottles and plastic cans and everything gets blown into the hedges and forgotten about. So that's another thing we look at. Prohibited temporary signs. These are the signs you spoke about earlier. The snipe signs, banners, balloons, people waving signs out in the streets, things of that nature. Those types of signs are not allowed by plantation city ordinance and we do have to constantly recite businesses again because a lot of businesses feel that they are suffocating because they don't get that opportunity to advertise. A lot of small businesses, we also have to keep in mind that they don't have the budget to do national advertising on TV or radio. So other than you knowing a business exists, some of them, this is their only opportunity to actually attract customers. And I think that's part of the reason why they constantly put it out. Part of that is we also have issues where you have a regional or a national chain of a business and they have different employees that are constantly rotating, different managers that are constantly rotating. So even though you cited the business this month, next month you may have a new manager, you know, coming from a different region or a different city. Hey, why don't we have this sign out there? So they start putting out their sign. So it's something that's constantly back and forth that we spend a lot of time on. Other issues that we're dealing with are maintenance issues. Generally, awnings, discolored sections of the properties, broken sidewalks and walkways, broken gutters, things of that nature. It's no different than a property or a residential property. With a commercial property, obviously nine out of 10 times, it's a lot larger in scale. So it's a lot more work for them to do. And generally they're not thinking about that. They're just thinking about how do I open my business? How do I make money? But we have seen good improvement in the after effects of it. Once they have cleaned the property, once they have pressure cleaned their roof, pressure cleaned their sidewalks, you know, like they have noticed more traffic, more customers when they're coming to a clean facility. So that's definitely an improvement. Other than that, we also have a lot of these landscaping that's now becoming mature in the city. So within the parking lots, et cetera, we have a lot of landscaping that's now breaking up the landscape islands. Within the parking lot and driveways, we have low hanging branches. These obstruct traffic signs and they don't provide adequate clearance for tall vehicles and for pedestrians. So that's again, we may site it now and six months later, we're having to go back and site it again. That also ties into the other point where we have damaged driveways and parking areas. Some of this is caused due to natural, you know, life cycles of asphalt. Some of it due to vehicle damage, some of it due to the landscape damage. We're dealing with potholes, damaged curbs, broken wheel stops, faded or worn pavement markings, missing stop signs, faded stop signs. So whenever we're looking at a property in general, we're not looking for one thing. We're trying to capture as much as possible at that time at that visit. Some of the issues that we are facing in commercial enforcement is due to the extended time that's needed to come to bring these properties into compliance because of the significant cost factor that's allocated to it. For example, I just had one of the supermarkets just simply pressure clean the back of their store and the cost was close to five thousand dollars. So it's a lot higher than a residential property. So we have to keep that in mind that we're not, we're not citing them or we're not putting them into a position for an aesthetic issue that could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now we do cite primarily for safety issues and those we do take, you know, we do have a shorter time frame to correct on that. So we don't give as much leeway for safety issues as we do for aesthetic issues. I think, you know, that's important that we do that. Another issue and I touched on this earlier is the multiple parties involved to resolve these issues. Again, the business owners, the property owners, property manager and contractors. And I think COVID, the commercial inspection process started right around COVID-19. So we were not full on on commercial inspections at that time. So we were more focused on safety and sanitation issues, making sure that they were still following, you know, the local business tax receipt process, making sure their garbage was still being picked up on time, you know, just get the basics done without going too much in debt with commercial enforcement. And the last point was regarding the constant rotation of employees or management within these businesses. So it's not the same person that you saw living at the house 30 years that has an idea. It's someone you constantly have to go on, keep on doing it again. All right. Thank you. You guys have any questions? Um, no. How many more speakers do we have? So just two. So we're not as far behind as I thought. All right. So what's that? No, we're going to 630. Um, does anyone have a question? We can take some very quick questions and then I'd like to move on so that we have a little bit of time at the end. Yeah. All right. Um, let's move on to the next one. And then let's try to keep it to a, a tight 15 minutes if possible. And then we'll circle back with questions if necessary. Hi. Hi. Good evening, everyone. My name is Pearl Roger and I am the, uh, building enforcement coordinator for the city of plantation building, uh, building department. I wanted to briefly touch on just a couple of topics. Um, mainly chain of command, um, our general enforcement process and some of the obstacles that we face. So to start off the building code enforcement inspectors and staff are responsible for promoting the compliance of the minimum safety standards for construction, alteration, and repair of buildings set forth in the Florida building code through enforcement. So these standards were made to address issues that negatively impact safety, health, and the general welfare of building occupants. As a part of the building department, our goal is to help enhance the quality of life in the city, as well as work with residents and business owners to resolve Florida building code violations, primarily through education, but also via enforcement when required. So our chain of command, um, is the building code enforcement branch of the building department is under the supervision of our building department director and building official, Mr. William Gale. We, um, in our department, we have one coordinator, that's myself, one permit analyst, one assistant building official, and 13 building inspectors. Each inspector is assigned to a code enforcement complaint based on the type of complaint and the related discipline. So upon receipt of a valid building violation complaint, one of the two, uh, court, uh, administrative staff will enter the complaint information received and create a building code enforcement case for investigation. That case is assigned to one of the inspectors to investigate and confirm the violation. Once the violation is confirmed, the property owner is educated by our inspector on how to bring that violation into compliance. The property owner is normally given 30 days from this, uh, from the date of the violation issuance to come into compliance unless determined otherwise by the inspector. Some of the obstacles that we face, similar to what Shakila explained, um, is the anonymous complaints, um, per Florida statute, statute 162-21-3-B. We do not accept anonymous complaints, um, for code violations unless the violation presents an imminent threat to public health, safety, and welfare, or the destruction of habitat or sensitive resources. In order to investigate potential violations of codes and ordinances, complaints, complainants must provide their name and address. We also, um, face the obstacle of the fourth amendment. So the fourth amendment of the united states constitution as well as the constitution of the state of florida article 1 section 12 states that the right of the people to secure in their persons houses papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures and against unreasonable interception of private communications by any means shall not be violated. In other words, an inspection of private property commercial or residential by code enforcement by a code enforcement officer that is without the consent of the owner operator or occupant is an unreasonable search and a violation of one's constitutional rights. There is an exception in which the code enforcement officer does not need permission to inspect the property for code compliance, um, for areas that can be seen from public property such as the streets. So in summary, our inspectors must be granted access by property owners onto or into the property in order to confirm a violation or complaint. Otherwise, the violation must be visible from the street. May I ask a very quick clarifying? Do they have to assess it from the street? Or if they can see it violated from the street, do they have permission to go on and inspect further? That's a great question. And for that question and all other questions, I'm going to refer you to my assistant building official, Carmen Hobut. Hello, my name is Carmen Hobut and the assistant building official, Mr. William Gale. Um, your question? Could you repeat, please? Yes. I know you, if you see a, if the homeowner doesn't allow you on the property, but you can see a violation from the sidewalk or street, you can cite them. But if you can see the violation, does it give you permission to go further to investigate further into the violation? No. So you have to, yeah, I have to cite them from the distance. That, that is correct. That is correct. But I have to say, may, may, I, I, I think, uh, Ms. Pro will talk about later. We had a great city. Uh, let's say, uh, about, uh, 600 plus code violation that we have. We have almost 45% come into compliance when they, uh, understand the code violation and what is needed to, to be in compliance. So in reality, we had a, uh, a great, uh, residents willing to be in compliance. Thank you. You can only, uh, search for the things by Florida statute that you're assigned to search, which is different than other code enforcement and police code enforcement. Yeah, that is, uh, a great area also in great limitation. And Mr. S road and quantum can correct me or enforce what I'm going to say. But when we get invited by means of an inspection, because we had a permit apply for it, we only go for what the permit is about. So if somebody applies for their windows and door new installation, like a horse, I go just for the windows, windows and door. It has to be something very brazen that I see in front of my, my face, or the inspector see in front of the face. Like, uh, no bearing wall has been demolished and you can testify that it's, it's okay. I had, I had no other choice and go to the due process. That satisfy you? Good question. Yeah. Okay. That is, uh, the 45%, uh, 43% of compliance by the, the city resident, which is, I think it's very good. Of course, we are looking for a hundred percent, but, uh, it's, it's great. You see that, uh, the total, total number of, uh, building, uh, violation cases, 662 to this year, for this year, but compliant cases is 286. That's roughly 43%. Okay. And you see at the bottom that, that when Tony and his crew, uh, come and do inspections, um, they can help us out some. Give me an example of that. Yeah. That, that is a very interesting, um, uh, fire department, they perform an annual inspection, roughly a hundred percent of the commercial buildings. So, because they, they have that privilege that we don't have every year visiting the same addresses, the same, the same people, the same location. They had, uh, um, a better idea. Oh, this door wasn't there a year ago. So, uh, they refer us. And what is nice about the, uh, fire department, they educate before they call building department. Um, uh, they educate the, the, the owner or whoever it is right there. Listen, this is what's happening. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to call, uh, the building department. You very probably are going to need, uh, a building permit application, but I need somebody from the building department to tell you exactly what you need to, to do to get them in compliance. Very good. All right. So we're at PNZ. Um, well, that was good, because now we're seven minutes ahead of schedule. So if anybody wants to ask any questions, you guys were stressing me out on my last day. I'm like looking to move over a seat. All right, Danny. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the council for the record, Dan Holmes, planning, zoning, economic development director. Uh, my section will be very brief. Uh, we have a kind of small little function, uh, that kind of gets into the code enforcement, uh, area. Um, and we have, uh, just a few staff members that really kind of deal with code enforcement matters. So all our, our entire staff is not consumed with, uh, kind of addressing code enforcement matters. Unfortunately, as a director, I have to get involved in code enforcement issues, assistant director, uh, the, uh, three, uh, business, uh, you know, clerks that we have, uh, uh, kind of deal with, uh, some of the information, uh, relative to, uh, business tax receipts and also our short term, uh, rentals. Uh, and then there, there's a couple of zoning, uh, staff as well that, uh, you know, uh, that, uh, complaints are, uh, um, given to that kind of investigate and follow up on, uh, matters as well. And then we have, uh, landscape, uh, function as well. Number of cases for us, uh, you know, they're kind of all over the place, but the bulk of the cases, uh, basically landscaping and zoning related violations could be related to signs or illegal removal of trees, you know, things of that, of that sort. Um, most prevalent cases, uh, as I just indicated, there were tree removals without a permit. That's something that we get, uh, quite a bit of, um, improper tree trimming. So there are lots of, uh, people that, uh, report that as well. Trees get hat racked or what have you, uh, you know, so that is a violation, uh, prohibited and or unpermitted, uh, signs. Again, we talked about business signs, uh, a little bit, but some of the other ones that come to us, uh, don't just deal with the A-frame, but kind of deal with the ground signs or wall signs that people, uh, put up, uh, as well, uh, outdoor storage, um, on, uh, properties and unregistered vacation rentals. That's one of the big ones that we're, uh, kind of working on, uh, right now as well. Um, for us, as indicated, most of the violations that we received are resolved through compliance. So after, uh, contacting or issuing, uh, the notice, people will generally come in and they will try to follow the procedure and to try to correct, uh, the violations. Um, um, um, so we don't have a lot of stuff that actually goes to the special magistrate. Um, landscape case summary, just to kind of give you a summary of some of the things on the land case, uh, with, uh, landscape, uh, for example, um, in 2024 of the, the violations we received, like 46 were complied with. So you can see the majority are complied with once they are notified. Um, eight, uh, after we kind of looked at it were, uh, closed out or sometimes we go out, people make, uh, complaints and we kind of look at the code and what they're complaining about. It's, it's, it's unfounded. Um, two were fine. Um, overall we did take 23 that kind of, uh, got to the violation, uh, process with the special magistrate and there was one that, uh, was, was voided out. Next slide. Okay. Um, so, uh, in general, um, how many properties have we cited, uh, average, uh, we, we do about six to 12 per month. Like, like I said, it's not a large volume, uh, that we get, uh, most cases reach compliance, as I indicated before the special magistrate hearings. Um, how many have we been able to discontinue at least 65% over the past year? Um, and the problems with, uh, property owners, uh, approving, so some of the problems that we have, I'll go back with regard to short term rentals is, um, when they get cited for operating, uh, they will come in and they will tell us, oh, I'm no longer operating my property. We do have a software that we've invested in that we utilize. It's very good. It kind of goes out and kind of scrubs all of the, uh, listing sites out there. And when that property still shows up, you know, we tell them, Hey, you need to go to your listing, you know, whether that's Airbnb or what have you, and have the property removed. Um, some of them indicate that they have a lot of problems with this. So when they go to the special magistrate, they'll say, Oh, I've called Airbnb and I've told them, you know, requested it to be removed. It's still out there or what have you. So there are some issues. Some people manage to get it done. Uh, you know, no problem others, you know, and we've tried to, to help when we see what other people have done. Sometimes we've, uh, intervened and tried to give them some contact information. I mean, there are lots of listing, uh, you know, uh, apps out there, so we don't know all of them. And, you know, so we can't help with, with, with all of them, but we have been able to help, uh, some individuals problems for applicants and obtaining a certificate of insurance. Uh, also now some, uh, applicants, again, this is an issue that I'm trying to get a, a better, uh, feel for, um, when they're registering for their short term rentals. Uh, you know, one of our requirements is the, uh, certificate of insurance. Some, no problem. They bring their certificate of insurance in. We process them. Others say, look, I'm having a hard time. Uh, I keep getting rejected or the insurance company that we're trying to utilize is telling me that they won't underwrite it for, for my property. I've asked them to, to some of the ones that I've talked to personally. I've said, listen, um, I need you to bring back to me. If you can get information from your insurance company, whatever, uh, correspondence that they've sent you or what have you, I've yet to this date to get any of that information back. So, I mean, they, they tell me that it's a problem, but I, I haven't had, uh, any information that's been submitted to me that, you know, because if it is a real problem, then it's something that we would need to, of course, go back and maybe look at our ordinance to see if we need to, to make some revisions or what have you. So I'm still working on that. And maybe I'll come back if someone does come in and provide me with, with that information. Um, so right now, um, close to 400 active unregistered listings about, uh, you know, uh, two years ago has been reduced about 128 as per host compliance. So we're getting our number down. This is, uh, kind of almost like a, a homeless thing. You do like a point in time. We do get, uh, every month I get a, um, an update from, uh, the host comply or Granicus now. Uh, and they will tell me the number cause they'll do a search, uh, every month. That number changes cause, uh, there are people that will advertise their property, then they remove it or what have you. So, you know, I could look at the, uh, end of one month summary, and it could tell me there's 200, uh, you know, short term rentals. Uh, and then the next month it could be down to 105 or something. So the number, uh, varies because of, you know, when people decide to list a property or not or what have you. So it's, it's always a, a moving number. We are getting more people in. We're trying to get, uh, you know, do tougher, uh, enforcement, uh, now have, uh, much more staff. At one point, we were moving along, you know, very well. Then we had some business tax issues that I kind of had to deal with cause that was the fire, uh, within the department. We're kind of getting that under control a little bit. And now we're, we're ramping up again, uh, in, um, the enforcement of, uh, a short term rentals. Uh, so that's just a, a quick summary of some of the things that, uh, we're dealing with within planning and zoning. Great. Um, first question, where are we at the backlog with the business tax receipts? Well, okay. So, uh, with regard to, uh, the renewals, uh, the last time we were like around six of the, I got a report, uh, a couple of weeks ago. I know we were very close. We were doing very well, uh, with, with the renewal. I can, I'll, I'll send you that percentage. And I guess in along those lines are, I'm seeing a lot of businesses that are not posting their business tax receipts. And I'm worried that they are the ones that got caught up in the system that they're, you know, in, in purgatory and, you know, hey, no one's called. So I haven't done my patent business tax receipt for three years. Um, I hope if, if we find those people, those businesses, that we're going to have them pay for all three years that they weren't. Otherwise we shouldn't be issuing it. Um, the, um, I don't remember the name of the, um, of the websites, but it's like Airbnb's, but it's for car rentals, Turo. So, does our software identify those people because we need to get them on the business tax receipts where they're, you know, they're individually renting their cars to the, they're turning into rental car lots. They're renting it from a, like a business. It's like Airbnb except instead of renting a, uh, residence, you're renting a, you're renting a car. I think I mentioned this to you before. Okay. Yeah. Is that something that our software can identify those people? Because if you do a search on there, you can see a ton of them in plantation. Yeah. The Granicus and the application we're utilizing will not, it's, it's just geared strictly because what, what Granicus is doing is basically going to the short term rental sites and just scrubbing that. Well, if we could look for a mechanism to identify those people, I, I, I'm, I'm in a business where people don't have to do the compliance, don't have to do the, um, um, the fees, the licensing that I have to do. And I'm at a competitive disadvantage for someone doing a lesser quality job than what I can do with my professional credential. So I'm sensitive to it. And I brought this up before. The last thing is, uh, the last question I have, and I've talked to Chief Harrison about this, that there's a property that looks like they're, they're turning it, trying to turn into a car lot. So I guess one thing I, uh, question like as a personal individual, does the code allow like for you to personally sell a car once or twice a year? Otherwise then it's considered a business and then we need to get them on the business tax receipt. What, what's our, I'm sort of thinking along the lines of like you can do X amount of, um, garage sales or yard sales a year. Um, you know, if you're selling a car once a month, that's not for personal, um, you know, just selling a personal piece of property. That, that's a business in my mind. Do we have anything to addressing that? Because I'm getting concerned where this property is, that it could turn the entire street into a commercial. Okay. So this is a commercial property or a single family? It's a single family home property. Chief Harrison knows about it. I've been talking to him about it. Um, I'm just concerned that other people are going to see what this person's doing. And before we know it. Yeah, I would say if it's something that's ongoing, you know, it is definitely a business and, uh, yeah, we can look into that. Okay. Uh, chief, you have anything to add? She knows what I'm talking about. Okay. Okay. Sorry. And that gravel. The Calvary's here. And I apologize. I am not a great presenter. So, um, the situation with cars for sale, the code allows for you to have a car for sale. Um, it's not something that- A registered car to sell. A registered car to sell. Um, I will also say that we don't go knocking on doors and necessarily ask them if those, you know, how many people live in a home, how many vehicles are allowed to be there, you know, for that reason. The one we're talking about though, they have nice yellow and red signage saying for sale. Yes. Yes. So they're allowed to have a vehicle for sale. There's a couple of things, um, also, uh, you know, property owner can have one vehicle for sale parked in the driveway. I think that one was parked on the gravel. Is that gravel? It was gravel. Yes. Are they allowed to have that gravel or did they get a code, uh, or a permit to put the gravel in? Well, they wouldn't need a permit to have put the gravel in. Um, they were instructed that they couldn't park on the gravel because they have to park on an improved surface. Okay. They want to have the gravel for- Instead of grass. Yes. Okay. Okay. It looks like hell. They can't park on it. Um, I will say also, as far as people having multiple vehicles for sale, maybe once this month, another one in another month, there's something that we can assume that they have a home business under different section of code saying that they are showing evidence that they are running or engaging in a business, but actually having proof of the business is the problem. So we're monitoring it. Yes. That, that case is still open. Uh, typically for my department, what we're looking at is sunbiz. We're using sunbiz to tell us that someone has a business. We're using Google. We're using- To be a sole proprietor, you don't need to have a registered LLC or Inc or whatever. Um, you know, they, they, they don't have to be organized in order to have a business. Right. Um, that's the part that makes it difficult to actually cite someone for having a business. I think we got to see what's going on with the property and the turnover of the cars. And in this case, I don't want to get really into specifics, but I think chief knows I'm very concerned about that property and what could happen to the rest of that, that street. Um, I will, uh, council member Andrea. Thank you. Okay. So Mr. Holmes, I touched upon it earlier. I think the ordinance is about maybe 25 years old, if I saw that correctly. Um, and I know this isn't high on the priority list because we had, you know, we're dealing with flex and you had some other higher priority ones, but I hope it's in the queue for at some point. And I was concerned about what I mentioned earlier. So are we asking, um, businesses, home businesses to get to local business tax receipts? So I, I think what you're referring to is the typical processes that are almost like if they're, we use this in most businesses where there's a, like a firm maybe, and then there are practitioners like for doctors or lawyers off. So the, the, uh, actual business itself will get a, uh, you know, a, a, uh, business tax receipt. And then, uh, if all the professionals, you know, that operate in there also will get a business tax receipt, but in this case, you're saying for a home-based business, uh, I, I would think that the home-based business would, would be enough. I'll, I'll look into, to that matter. Because that's how it's, if it's just a single person running the, the home-based business. It's not really, is it a professional business? Is it like, uh, cause you can have like architects or a firm? Is it, or is it? Yes, just like that. And they were told they had to get two. Okay, let me, let me, let me look and see. I'll have to go back and look at the ordinance. Yeah, if you had a CPA. Technically, I would say yes, because I guess we're going to look at that. But let me, let me look at that. And as I said, we are in the process. We are, uh, noting a lot of, uh, you know, issues, uh, with the BTR ordinance. We are, we do plan to undertake some revisions to that ordinance. As you indicated, it is, uh, very old. And it is something that, uh, we need to look at and update. I've, I've, you know, as you said, I've got a ton of stuff that we're trying to, to move on right now, but we're, we definitely have that on our radar. And then my last question, question is this. So the software that you're using for applicants to apply, that's part of Granicus? Okay. So no, Granicus, uh, Acela is the software that we utilize for individuals to apply to get their business tax receipt. Uh, Granicus is a software that we utilize. Uh, it's more, it kind of helps us police, uh, short term rentals. Okay. Okay. So the Acela, I know you, I wasn't able to attend, but I know that maybe last month or two months ago, you did some type of workshop to help people navigate. Acela, did you have, we're, we're, we're trying, yes. Well, we're going to be changing platforms to, uh, Oh, you are. Hopefully that'll make it a little better. That's great. Cause I don't find it user friendly. We've been told that particularly for the business tax, uh, application. Uh, I do want to go back and take a look at some things where actually, uh, uh, it is actually helping me right now, uh, kind of build a better portal for short term rentals. Uh, and so we're, we're very close to actually putting that up and there's a lot of things that we're able to write and incorporate into that. That's going to be helpful. We took some information that people generally complain about to us as part of the business tax process. So we're, there's some things that are going to be improved in terms of communication and, uh, you know, the way that works. So we're hoping that we can go back because the business tax, um, you know, uh, function is going to be a different one than the short term rental one. So we, I do want to apply some of those things that I think we can, where I talked to IT about, but as I said, we're going to look at this, this new, uh, you know, Acela thing that we're, we're looking at, uh, first. And I think it is, you hit on it, the communication piece, because I think it wasn't that it wasn't user-friendly. Let me restate that it was easy to use, but when you have to go back in because there's an error or more documents are needed, whatever the case is, I feel like that's kind of when you go into, what did you call it? That dead zone or something, council member, like, because then is the, whoever the person is from your office that's managing this, are they being notified? Because what I found with my, my individual situation was then the document just sat there. And if I didn't pick up the phone and call and say, you know, like, go look at case six, seven, six. I will tell you what happens. Sometimes it even happens on the planning and zoning in is that people go in, they update their application and they don't, uh, there's a, there's a button that you have to hit. They think they've done everything and they sent it to us. And because you didn't hit that, do that last step. We don't really actually have it yet. And so they're thinking that it's there and what's taking so long. And sometimes we have to go back and kind of walk people through that process. Yes. But once it even is submitted, do you get some type of alert? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It'll, it goes into like a little queue and there's a status, there are different statuses, uh, that we have to look at. So thank you. Council member Horland. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Holmes, uh, can you speak to, when we're talking about short term rentals, uh, the coordination, we've, we've spoken in the past between the coordination between your department and the police department. And one of the things that I had requested in the past was some possible nighttime or weekend, um, code enforcement, uh, out there, because that's when a lot of our violations take place. I brought up the city of Hollywood, which they're dealing with a much larger number of short term rentals. However, uh, we know that's when the violators, um, a lot of the violations are occurring. Has, have we made any progress on that front? We, we, we've talked about it. We do have code meetings. Uh, I, I, I won't say we've resolved, uh, anything. I know there's some dollars or funds that would be, uh, involved in that and getting, uh, additional, uh, you know, code enforcement, uh, you know, at, at night, typically what the way we handle a lot of those though, uh, to be honest is because there's such a nuisance that residents, uh, that live in that area, they will definitely let us know, hey, this property is a problem and we will move, uh, once they, you know, tell, and a lot of times it can be very helpful. We tell them safely if they can get pictures of cars on the street or whatever, all of that information helps us as we move forward, trying to build a code enforcement case. And then we will, we'll take that property. We'll even utilize our, our software to, to try to get, you know, listing information. So, uh, you know, that's, that's very helpful, but that, that's the process. But I know, uh, we have not, um, as you know, in the last budget, uh, process, we did not, uh, uh, dedicate any additional funding for that. I think even if we started out with a pilot, maybe once a month, um, especially when we're talking about some of these properties that have been delist, delisted from the platform, supposedly, maybe not necessarily. We're not catching, they might be using a different platform. Right. I think be able to have somebody out there, you know, just taking a look at those properties occasionally on the weekend to see if they are in fact, um, you know, not renting that anymore would be important. And I think for, um, the chief and not, not for short-term rentals, but we've got a situation again with the SDA Sinai Church. I've been having a hard time getting a hold of them, but the fact is that the parking on the swale is continuing, um, and that's on the weekend. So if, if we don't have anybody seeing that, then they're not getting cited. And I'd really just like them to come into compliance. Uh-huh. 46. 46 seconds. Yeah. Okay. I can, I can let our guys know. Okay. Thanks. But with what we were talking about, uh, short-term rentals is that over the weekends, we have, we have shut down a lot of these, uh, events, let's call it, uh, before they actually take effect. And that's just some of the software that we have at the police department in monitoring all those social media accounts and finding out that, uh, that they're claiming it's a graduation party or they're claiming it's a wedding party. And there are some out there, but for the most part, they're trying to disguise themselves as. And your department's done a great job with that. But even when we're not talking about those large events, we've got short-term rentals that are just violators, whether it's the trash out there or the parking, it may not be a large event. And I think, you know, what we've talked about before is making it a little uncomfortable for them, you know, and making sure that they come into compliance and know that they're watching. So, um, I think it's, it's more to that point, you know, maybe not the large events, but, um, bringing the smaller violators into compliance. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Um, one last question. Uh, you brought up Sunbiz, which reminded me of, um, there was a resident that brought, brought to my attention that they got cited for no business tax receipts for these LLCs. And sometimes these LLCs are being used as an investment, um, instrument, could be holding a boat, could be holding an interest in a piece of real estate, but then the address of the LLC is a plantation address. So is there any assessment as to whether it's an actual operating unit or if it's like a, uh, uh, an investment instrument is there any, well, he, he pulled, he had about 10 LLCs, which were really investment instruments and not an operating business. Right. Okay. And, um, I guess he, it was at a darker time in planning and zoning. Right. Um, that, uh, he just removed them out of the city, put them somewhere else out. Um, but, um, they weren't operating businesses, you know, it wasn't a home business. It wasn't a brick and mortar business. Um, they, they were just, um, investment instruments. And, um, I would say that if they're not an operating business, you know, create revenue, have expenses, then there should not be a business tax receipt. Is there any kind of, um, subjective, uh, assessment of these LLCs that we might identify on sunbiz in certain circumstances? Yeah. I, I'd have to look in, in, into that. Um, I understand what I'm saying? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So I, I think that we, that should be maybe a consideration because there's a ton of those LLCs that, you know, you and your neighbor might have an LLC just to hold a boat. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to, and that's maybe something I'll have to talk with legal about too. Okay. The sun does, um, kind of triggered that, um, memory. Um, do not see any other questions from the day is do we want to go to finance now? I, you said it's brief, so I guess it's time. Come on up, Anna. If council doesn't have anything to backtrack to, you know, um, no one's, it's, it's, it's worth a quick talk. It's worth a quick talk. I feel like we're addressing all the questions. Good evening, council president, council members, uh, finances, Anna Oteniano finance director, uh, finances behind the scenes. We are not really involved at all in the process of code enforcement. We are the ones that the code department sends the information to for us to start billing. We build the information. Uh, we also then compile, uh, all the different departments time so we can generate what a payoff amount would be because we'll often get, uh, somebody wants to come in and say, okay, does a lien, uh, start a title search on their house if they're selling their property and they will ask what's the payoff as of today. We will calculate the payoff. Um, other than that, then if a case comes into compliance, we accept the payments for the cases and then we, uh, process the paperwork to give to city clerk to do the release of lien. Um, most recently we were asked, um, to look into the fine schedule for the reduction, the, the $500 fine we were asked. So we're looking into that to see, um, on some, some departments were thinking it's not enough because of the amount of time that's spent doing those cases. Uh, so I'm going to take a look and see. We kind of already started looking to see actually with the amount of time and the cost based on the hourly wage of those people performing the duties to see exactly is the fine too much or not enough. Um, the other thing is, uh, we're exploring, yeah, we're exploring. That's, those are it. That's, that's the extent of it. So we basically bill for the fines. We write off when a magistrate comes in and says, okay, uh, this is how much you're going to pay. We will write off the difference, send the paperwork to city clerk and they record the release of lien and that's it. Sounds like a little, but it's a lot. Um, council member Horland. Hello, Ms. Otaniano. Just to be clear though, it's department based. So when they come before the special magistrate, the fine reduction process, you're really not involved in that aspect. Are you? No, but there was a question. There was departments were wanting to know. Some departments were thinking that they were paying for all of the cases they want to to measure. It's not true. We looked into that and it wasn't true. And when the bills come in, they're charged to the department that is actually on that case. Okay. And I think just as a general overview, that's something that we've expressed up here, especially with the short term rental cases. I'm just going to make an overall statement on that. Uh, the fine reduction process, while we know there's a matrix, um, it's very frustrating, especially with some of these. And again, this is not to you, but it is financial issue, especially with some of these repeat offenders that the fines are being reduced, um, so greatly by the magistrate. Uh, and oftentimes it's a recommendation for staff to reduce. However, and I know you don't like that either. I know. Yeah, I know you don't like that either. Um, staff and code enforcement is going to meet with the magistrate very soon. Great. And, uh, get all that on the same page better. Again, good. Thank you. Yeah, because we even talked about maybe having the magistrate say everything except for the legal fees or the different fine staff time, that kind of thing, because that should be at least paid and then maybe write everything else off. Although Councilmember Reinstein. Thank you. Mine's not for finance. I, before we conclude this, um, just, just, uh, a observation is that, you know, when we're talking about the goal is compliance, and I appreciated that that was how, um, I believe Ms. Robinson started is that, you know, three out of four of the, um, complaints or issues that residents raised with me, it's, it's really tends to be the resident's lack of understanding for what they're being cited for or what the issue is. And most of the time when I've reached out to Mr. Gale or, or, or somebody else, the information has been, well, it's usually the contractor that they've pulled the permit so the contractor gets the details and the resident is saying, well, that's not what they told me. Um, or they told me something very different or they haven't told me anything at all. And so, you know, the, the more information that we can put out there so that residents can get a hold of it and it's not just the contractor pulling the permit or that when we talk about that basic code enforcement process in the warning stage that there's some, maybe a little less discretion as to needing to have that narrative of what that complaint is so that if it's verbal letter door hanger, that maybe it's always should be something written, um, so that the resident clearly has. And then you have the code compliance says this is exactly what we told them from the get go and gave them an opportunity. So there's no confusion. Um, you know, compliance is the goal. So let's make sure that the residents have more clarity because that's what I'm hearing is the, is the biggest, um, you know, concern is that, uh, they don't really understand what they're, you know, the residents. I'm not talking about the repeat offenders. I'm not talking about big commercial and talk about the residents who say, what are you talking about? My fence is, you know, not put in the right way or what are you talking about? My fence isn't high enough. Um, you know, so those are the concerns I would like to see come out of this and addressed. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. I do not see any other questions. Um, with that, thank you for the presentation. Um, I was thinking maybe if we could get like a framework just kind of like by each department with the things that they're, um, you know, things that they're supposed to be overseeing with a contact number, that could be something we could pass off to the residents. It also, I'm sometimes guessing who I'm calling on it. So, and I'm knee deep in it. So, um, that, that might be helpful to everyone. Um, so thank you. Great job, everyone. And, uh, with that, we're going to start the CRA meeting in about a minute. Um, we're adjourned at 629.