Today is Wednesday, April 1st.

We are together for a first time in a while for the Transportation Surtax appointing authority meeting.

We have two new faces.

Actually, Nate, were you at the last meeting?

I was.

Okay.

It's been so long for me to remember.

But happy to see you again.

So if our two newer members could please just introduce themselves to the group.

Good afternoon, Lorette Jean, Assistant County Administrator.

Steve Bulmer, the um director of School of Environmental Coastal and Ocean Sustainability, replacing the Center for Environmental Studies appointment at and I'm at Florida Atlantic University.

Thank you both.

Great to have you here.

We've got a relatively um brief agenda, but we do have some important items to discuss.

I want to make sure everyone has a chance uh to do just that.

So the first order of uh discussion is the administrative code 34.3A.

Uh all of that was provided in the backup material.

And there was a March 26th County Commission agenda item on it, which I do not know the update to, so it was not able to attend that meeting.

Uh it was passed on the consent agenda.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So is there an effective date immediately or yes.

The item that went before the board on the 26th, um, because uh the appointing authority in the past had adopted both as policy uh for the board itself, um, as well as it was included in the Brow County Administrative Code, that all seven members of the appointing authority must be present in order to conduct business.

Um because there is a vacancy that cannot be filled on the appointing authority, um county administration, map administration, county attorney's office placed an item on the agenda to have that section of the administrative code waived for purposes of this hearing.

Um and again, the reason behind that is that one of the um categories for members of the appointing authorities, a representative of the Broward County, a council of chambers of commerce, which was uh administratively dissolved about two years ago.

Um has we attempted to try to reach some of the folks that were still showing up on Sunviz, wasn't able to get any feedback about whether they were reinstating.

Um so for in order for this uh board to come together to conduct business, we sought the waiver of the code so that you could be meeting here today, actually have something other than a workshop.

Right.

Uh so that and uh in addition to that, the there was a part B to that item, which is directing the county attorney's office to uh in count in consultation and working with county administration to come up with changes to the ordinance that uh creates the different categories for the appointing authority to address that situation with the Broward Council Chambers, as well as um a tweak to the provision relating to the Florida Atlantic University representative because that particular school was subsumed within another uh uh school at the university.

So there are some tweaks that need to be made in connection with uh our ordinance for the uh and all of that was uh asked by the board office.

Okay, great.

Does anybody have any questions around that?

Yeah, two questions.

Uh was the uh position that the relating to the schools with or to the uh chamber, was that the appointment for which Dan Lindblade Dan Lindblade, yes.

Okay.

All right.

And then to the ordinance only the first part of that ordinance only applies for purposes of today's meeting.

Well, what we the rule or policy um regarding all seven members being present to conduct business is not in the ordinance, it's in the administrative code, which the board of county commissioners has the ability to wait.

Okay.

But that's only for today's that is for purposes of today's meeting.

Um if it needs to be done again, we would have to go back and get so why are you why don't we make that a permanent thing so that we're not having to make you go through hoops, Nate, when you I mean well you had if if I mean if we can meet with six, why not us meet with six?

We ought to have at least a minimum of something or five, but it seems crazy to me that if we have another issue that may surface in the future or name change or a why not just permanently allow that and that way you're not having to put stuff on the agenda and we're having to move meetings so that you can get it through.

I appreciate you doing that, but it just seems like a lot of unnecessary work if we can just change the code or the ordinance to say five out of seven to meet.

Well, and and again, or majority.

That that was uh a policy decision of the appointing authority at its inception, uh in terms of meeting with all, whatever you all would like to do, we are going back into the ordinance.

We certainly can go back into the administrative code as well.

Um that's just the will of of this board.

Although I would say that because uh that item potentially changing your admin code to deal with quorum issues is not on today's agenda.

Um that's not something that you all would be able to formally vote on.

But if we're just having a discussion on the topic, and there seems to be some general not consensus, but unless somebody wants to tell me otherwise, I'm more than happy to go in to uh make modifications.

Well, let me just give a little bit of the history and the why.

And I think that's important.

So when we were getting started, we just we didn't know what was going to be what, right?

So how often were we going to have to appoint people?

The idea was we really wanted everybody to hear everything about all of the applicants, which I think was the right intention.

Since then, we have not had very many openings.

And so I would be open to something like six or something that makes sense, given how frequently or more accurately, infrequently we are meeting to appoint people.

But the intent in the beginning was everyone should hear everything for all of the applications so you could hear the discussion.

And so I think that was the right intent at the time.

Yeah.