Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the city commission meeting this March 19, 2026.

Um we're filming a movie here today, I guess.

Uh these lights are so bright, but uh it's a weird color, Mayor.

Is this like turtle lighting?

Yeah, not turtle lighting.

I'd run out to the C2.

Anyway, uh thank you all for being here today.

We have a number of items to discuss this afternoon, and uh uh but with uh with every meeting we begin now with with our uh city commission reports.

Did you say something, David?

Mayor, yes.

We would typically begin with the CRA meeting.

I can't hear you.

We would typically begin with the CRA meeting and then go into the conference meeting now.

You wanted a CRA meeting first?

Okay.

That one's noticed for 130.

All right, folks.

We will jump into the CRA meeting.

Um community redevive redevelopment uh agency board.

Uh Mr.

Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Vice Chair Herbst.

Present.

Commissioner Glossman?

Here, Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Here, Commissioner Sorensen, here, Chair Trentals.

Here.

So for those of you who are uh seeing us uh on the internet, I just want to announce that uh the Vice Mayor was not able to attend in person for personal reasons, and uh Commissioner Beasley Pittman is not able to be here in person for personal reasons.

So the uh the remaining commissioners, myself, the uh uh Commissioner Glassman and Commissioner Sorensen uh will be able to conduct the meeting according to city charter as long as there's a majority uh in that are present, we can continue with the meeting.

Uh nonetheless, they uh the Vice Mayor and Commissioner Beasley Pittman will be allowed to vote uh and we'll be able to conduct our business in the normal course.

Okay, so we have our first motion, M1, the motion approving minutes of the February 17th, 2026 community redevelopment agency board meeting.

Uh would someone like to move the item?

Moved.

Second.

They're moving seconded.

Uh please call the roll.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Yes.

Commissioner Sorensen?

Yes.

Vice Chair Herbst.

Yes.

Commissioner Glassman?

Yes.

Chair Trentals.

Yes, and M1's now approved.

M2, motion approving a services agreement between the City of Fort Lauderdale and the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency.

Anyone have any questions with regard to this item?

There being none, would someone like to move the item?

So moved.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman moved.

Commissioner Glassman seconded.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Yes.

Commissioner Sorensen?

Yes.

Vice Chair Herbst?

Yes.

Commissioner Glossman?

Yes.

Chair Trentels.

Yes.

And M2 is now approved.

M3, motion accepting the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency annual report and audit report and authorizing to transmit to the taxing districts.

Anyone have any questions with regard to M3?

There being none.

Someone would like to move the item.

Moved.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Yes.

Commissioner Sorensen?

Yes.

Vice Chair Herbst?

Yes.

Commissioner Glossman?

Yes.

Chair Trentals.

Yes.

And M3 is now approved.

Is there any further business of the CRA agency board?

There's none, Mayor.

There's none.

This meeting is now concluded.

We'll now go back to the conference meeting.

And we'll begin with Commissioner Reports.

Vice Mayor, do you have any reports?

Yes, I do.

This is actually more of a question.

So I understand that a follow-up meeting was had with uh interim Miami regarding Lockhart Park design.

Uh just like a status update on that.

Uh during my report, I'll I'll be giving that.

Okay.

Well, uh, I'll address my my my comments and and questions then at that time.

So in that case, I've got nothing further at this point.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

I'm gonna pass today.

Thank you.

Okay.

Did you have fun in Washington?

Oh, very busy, very productive.

I will be sharing that a little um at another point.

I'm gonna give something in writing for everyone.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Glassman.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um March 4th, uh very interesting meeting at the uh convention center, uh Broward Workshop, putting on the 18th annual state of the county.

Uh it's always uh reassuring to hear um what's happening in our county and and the positivity, especially as it centers around our city, uh Fort Lauderdale.

Uh later that day, um I did join you, Mayor and Commissioner Sorensen at the ribbon cutting for Thrive Art District in Progresso Village.

Uh again, I mentioned this several times.

I would just tell folks if you haven't been there, you should get there.

Um what the gentlemen have done there, the Fish Brothers, in terms of turning a very, very desolate area of not just my district, but for the entire city, into exactly what the name is, Thrive, Thrive Art District.

Uh the hundreds and hundreds of people that are coming there for all of the activities.

Uh they're about 80 percent uh rented now.

Um it's really quite an accomplishment, and I'm still going to push that the city does more in terms of uh sidewalks, connectivity, lighting, parking.

Uh we need to just tie that ribbon uh uh and make it really a complete area uh because what has happened there from the developer side has been really incredible.

Uh when you look at that arts district and you connect that with the Mass District and Flagler Village and Fat Village, uh we've really, and and including even the downtown where we are, the Arts and Entertainment District, uh we've created a really nice corridor uh of arts and cultural activities, uh really uplifting the entire city and uh congratulations to those folks.

Uh March 5th, uh I had the pleasure of speaking at the Marine Advisory Board.

Uh quite an engaged group.

It's always great to see the work that goes on there.

Um, and it's always uh really a very positive experience and thank them for their service as well.

Uh March 7th, um, Mayor, we were at the human rights campaign dinner held at the Fort Lauderdale uh Harbor Beach Marriott, uh very well attended, um dealing with many current events of the day.

Unfortunately, uh most of them are not positive when it comes to the LGBTQ community, uh, but it was a really a good gathering there.

Uh a lot of issues aired and and very important.

Uh March 10th, I had the pleasure of meeting with about 30 business leaders downtown uh to discuss what's happening in our city as it relates to business, uh, how far we've come, more importantly, where we are going as a city and has how that affects business in our city.

Uh thank you to the folks that showed up at that meeting as well.

Uh March 11th, I had the pleasure of speaking at the sailboat Bend Civic Association meeting.

Uh again, uh our city's only residential historic district.

Um and it's always a pleasure to be there in the incredible historic uh fire museum.

Uh what a what a great location that is.

Um March 13th, um, the distinct pleasure of touring our brand new police headquarters.

I want to thank the chief and everyone on that tour.

Uh it was really an excellent, excellent tour.

I'm very impressed with that facility.

Uh so state of the art, so incredibly encompassing for every need that you can think.

Uh, and it really is a facility that our police deserve uh and our city deserves at the same exact time.

That afternoon, um, a very important meeting and joined Commissioner Sorensen at that meeting with the chief and and many other officers.

Uh we had a meeting with our city's local rabbis uh in the aftermath of the Michigan uh synagogue tragedy uh and so many others that are happening around not just our state, country, but the world.

Uh it was a good meeting.

Um it was a good meeting to reassure the Jewish community and the rabbis from Fort Lauderdale uh that we have their back and that we will do what we need to do to make sure that that community feels safe and that those synagogues feel safe.

Uh again, thank you to the uh chief uh for that meeting and and and for the tour.

Uh I really appreciate it.

March 14th, we had such a good time at the uh city of Fort Lauderdale, our St.

Patrick's Day parade.

Uh it was great, great to be there.

Uh always the energy.

Um, you know, the next day at we also actually we had the street striping on the 13th, the parade on the 14th, and the Emerald Society breakfast was out in Coral Springs on the 15th that I attended as well.

Uh so three days jam-packed of uh of celebrating St.

Patrick's Day.

The spirit is always great.

Uh and the Emerald Society breakfast, again, they must get about a thousand people at that breakfast.

Uh the scholarships that they provide for the young students, uh, it's really a great group uh and so deserving uh of what comes their way, and I wanted to say thank you to them uh for the work that they do as well.

Um I would like to ask actually a question while I'm talking about St.

Patrick's Day for the city attorney.

Have we determined or are we still trying to clarify what our role will be in the future with regards to St.

Patrick's Day?

I know that it's not an official holiday.

It's not on the state list of holidays, it's not a federal holiday.

Would that would that entire celebration be in jeopardy next year?

Commissioner, we're working uh to provide a more comprehensive uh analysis of all of it.

Uh in the most conservative view.

You're absolutely correct.

It's those items that are both federal holidays and state holidays.

And many things that you would expect uh our holidays are not.

So we'll be providing that to you along with guidance going forward.

Okay, thank you.

It will be interesting to see how that all you know plays out in the future.

Uh March 17th, um again, this was a distinct honor.

I I served as a presenter and also I installed the brand new 2026 uh Broward Chapter of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association Board of Directors at the beautiful Sinesta Hotel.

Um and I wanted to thank all of those people for their service.

Obviously, the hospitality industry is vital to the success of our economy.

Uh that's a great group.

Uh I think it's the largest membership of any of the chapters of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.

Uh so congratulations to them uh for their work.

Uh it was a pleasure to be with them.

Uh yesterday, uh, two events in the evening.

Um shop for a cause at the Lily Pulitzer store on Los Olds Boulevard was excellent because of the fact that the people were in such great spirit.

Um and Lily Pulitzer was donating 10% of all the sales that day to the Pink Angels Memorial Foundation, which is basically in support of uh breast cancer patients and their families at Memorial Cancer Institute, a great cause.

Uh and I would thank everyone involved for that.

That was also done in conjunction with Las Olas Boulevard and Isles magazine.

Um then in the evening I had the pleasure of meeting with the Flag of the Village Civic Association.

Uh we had talked as a commission about what our next steps were going to be with the one-stop shop site.

Um, and I was asked to convene and contact the DDA, which I did.

Uh the Downtown Development Authority uh came together with the Flagler Village Civic Association last night.

Uh we had a great meeting.

Uh it was an excellent presentation by the downtown development authority, uh, basically going through the history of what it took to get to where we are with Heizinga Park and then what the possibilities were and then what the next steps are.

Um it was well attended, and uh everyone there was very supportive of moving forward.

Um, I couldn't bring up the what's what's what's that, Pam?

She's I'm sorry.

It was uh um didn't mean to interrupt.

Go ahead, no problem.

Okay.

Um so what I would I would just ask city staff if we can just keep moving along that path and figure out what we're going to do uh so time just doesn't pass us by.

Um the neighborhood uh had a lot of good ideas, and I think that uh we can certainly continue um to move forward with that.

Um I know that um they would appreciate that as well.

Um I would also just mention, and I'm going to actually talk a little bit briefly about an item that I've been reading about all over social media, and uh but before I get to that, although it does sort of uh sort of connect, uh I did want us to congratulate uh the retirement for Ford.

I don't know if Ford will be on your list when you announce the retirees this evening, Mayor, but um that's a 17-year-old American Mustang who's part of our mounted unit and is retiring.

Uh hope he has a wonderful retirement.

Um and hopefully we'll mention him when we mention the retirees this evening.

Uh that's quite a horse, and it's really, really nice.

Um, I wanted to just discuss quickly if I might ask the the chief of police to come to the podium.

Um, Chief, I've been reading a lot about, I heard a lot about that night.

Uh we had a little bit of an incident on the beach.

I'm gonna I'm gonna bring I'm gonna bring up the one on Himershee Street.

Uh we I want to show the video so this is the beach one.

The beach one, okay, go ahead.

You take him as she I'll take the beach.

Okay.

Okay.

Although they're both in District 2, but it's okay.

I'm gonna pass that.

Thank you very much.

Um, Chief, um, I was made aware of what was happening, when it was happening, uh, and I've heard uh I know a lot of social media carried it.

I've been seeing videos and people just posting all over the place.

If you could just very succinctly tell us what happened, what you were aware of, how it was handled as easily as possible.

Absolutely.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, uh Bill Schultz, Chief of Police.

So reference the incident uh on March 17th.

Uh we uh were made aware of this uh potential gathering prior to the event.

Um thankfully, uh thanks to our very positive interaction and relationships with our local youth and middle and high schools, they actually brought it to our attention that this event may occur.

Um after that, as soon as we got the notice, uh we planned, and that planning mattered.

We increased the staffing on the Barrier Island.

We deployed a wide arrange of resources to include additional patrol officers, additional motors, adults mounted, uh, our quick response team, uh, criminal investigations, so on and so forth.

We also coordinated, and this is important, uh, we coordinated with the Brower County School Board, uh, their police department and their security department, and we actually crafted a message that we sent in advance uh via the normal means of communication to the students, uh parents.

And we sent that message uh three days in advance, four days in advance of that potential gathering, advising parents, this has been advertised to your children.

Uh please have a conversation with your children about attending or not attending.

Uh while the crowd was large, the event itself lasted approximately five hours, ended around 10 p.m.

Uh we most importantly had no major incidents.

There were uh a number of small skirmishes and fights, which were immediately brought up uh broke up by officers.

Uh there were three arrests during the time.

Uh one was an adult resident arrested for battery law enforcement officer and had narcotics on him.

Another was a notice to appear of a local adult for disorderly conduct, and the last was a juvenile resident who was uh arrested for theft.

The broader point here is we cannot stop people from coming to the beach.

We know that.

But what we can do is prepare, we can surge our resources just as we did, and we can respond effectively.

It's exactly what we did uh in that situation.

Now I will tell you uh that night I was out there the entire night.

I was actually on site, mostly up in the beach place area.

Um the weather did end up playing a factor.

It became very cold and very rainy.

So I think a number of the individuals in attendance left uh due to the weather.

But I will uh absolutely say uh when this occurred, our officers responded in such a noble and commendable way.

I could not be more proud of how they handled the situation that night.

Uh and we did um work very closely with our city manager uh and other officials throughout the night to make sure that this was handled as uh specifically as it was an incorrect fashion.

So that was the summary of that night, and I'll open it up if you have any questions.

No, thank you for that.

Um and I'm glad you mentioned the the notice that went out and how we were anticipating.

It always boggles my mind that all of the now a lot of kids were actually middle school, correct?

Yeah, there were some very young middle school children.

Middle school and high school, I don't know where the parents are.

I'm glad there were notices that went out, but maybe we can work even closer with the school board because there has to get a message out to the parents.

I I can't even imagine that that's okay that all of these kids uh you know on a that's a school night, right?

Tuesday night.

Uh yeah.

Well, it was spring break this year.

They're off.

So what is what exactly describe to us what this event was publicized as being.

So there was a obviously an unofficial, unsanctioned event.

So someone made a graphic, an advertisement that ultimately went out on at least Instagram.

Uh I'm told it probably went out on SNAP and other means as well.

It was just a a one-page graphic that had the logos of all the county schools and invited everyone to come to the beach uh at the same day on the same time.

The time was incorrect.

It was at first it was noon, then it was changed to 10 a.m.

and they the majority did not show until starting at 4 p.m.

But that's what uh garnered the attention of individuals.

Um the advertisement there were various things mentioned, uh, but it was primarily to advise the local youth to all uh come to the beach on that day uh at some time.

So just to show up.

Just to show up.

Okay.

It wasn't in protest of anything.

It wasn't to uh uh uh confront other groups.

It wasn't meant to be a staging area for uh you know any kind of uh uh conflict resolution.

It was just simply to show up.

As far as I know, yes.

Any estimate of the number that showed up?

So today?

So I'm still working on the uh a more official approximate count, but it was certainly many hundreds.

Uh if I were just to guess by what I saw, uh closer to 800 to 1,000 throughout the five-hour span.

Okay.

Excellent.

Well, I I want to thank you, and I want to thank the entire department because I have heard nothing but praise uh from the beach community, um, from that whole Central Beach area, the neighborhoods, all of those streets.

Um actually I've heard it from people that typically are not so complimentary.

So I will say say thank you because um it's an outstanding job that was done.

Uh the anticipation is so important, uh, so we didn't have a repeat of what we saw last year.

Uh and I just want to say thank you because again, great job, job well done, and it's really greatly appreciated.

I not just for district two, but for the entire city.

Thank you, Commissioner.

And I I want to say that that thanks truly belongs to the women and the men of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

We are truly uh blessed to have one of the absolute finest forces in this nation, and I could not be more proud of them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I agree.

Um Mayor, that's it for me.

I I was going to talk about him, Michelle.

I'll let you have it.

You got the videos, I'll chime in when you do your thing.

Um, but I I I I know that that was also on my list, but I wanted to make sure.

Um I wanted to also find out, City Manager.

Um, the IPW conference, for those of you that don't know, the largest tourist conference in the world is coming to Fort Lauderdale in May.

Um, I just want to make sure, because I've been hearing about this from people, what are we doing?

Uh, we're going to do banners, what how how's the beach gonna be affected?

Are we gonna you know play this conference up uh to welcome these?

I guess we're expecting like six thousand delegates to this conference.

It's that big.

Um are we working towards so the city com uh city manager has something to say on that?

I did just ask her, yes, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner and Mayor.

Yes, we are coordinating on the IPW conference that's coming to the Broward County Convention Center.

We want to make sure that Fort Lauderdale is as beautiful, safe, and inviting as possible uh when those uh uh event goers come to our city.

We're going to be working on banners with the beach improvement district.

We also want to work on a closing reception activation with Visit Lauderdale.

We are going to enhance our major corridors.

Also think on the beach, Las Olas.

We want to make sure that they're as beautiful as possible during that time period.

Excellent.

I just want to make sure because I'm getting asked a lot about that.

So um I really really appreciate that.

Um just very briefly.

Um I know that um March 23rd, which is uh this this coming Monday, we're all going to gather and uh celebrate what has been accomplished at the Hyzinga Park.

Uh March 24th, the 372nd Police Academy graduates wearing in ceremony at the new police station.

And on March 26th, I'll be hosting for District 2 our neighborhood association president's roundtable.

Um that's it for me, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

Commissioner uh Kusarancy.

Thanks, Mayor.

Appreciate it.

Um, City Manager for IPW, are we play is is the mayor or the commissioners playing any role in welcoming uh the the conference to uh to our city?

We can certainly coordinate that with the Visit Lauderdale team.

There are several moments of engagement and interaction that can be scheduled around your availability, so we'll work with Visit Lauderdale on that aspect.

That'd be great.

Thanks.

I I'd like to be part of that and defer to the mayor on that, but that I think that'd be great.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Um just some additional comments on some of what we've already talked about.

Uh fantastic St.

Patrick's Day uh parade, uh striping and parade.

So thank you, Parks and Rec staff, thank you, police, fire, fantastic job.

Um, making sure that was safe and and fun time.

We had a put your sport jacket in the uh St.

Patrick's Hall of Fame.

That'd be I'd appreciate that.

Will that be next to your speedous?

Yeah, that's at the swimming hall of fame.

Right.

But we could maybe it could be a moving gallery where we just bring it to different parts of the city.

So fantastic.

I'll look forward to that.

I'll make sure to dry clean it in advance, get it ready.

Thanks.

Um went to the Edgewood Civic Association, and we uh they honored uh Allied Kitchen and Bath and especially for the just their great volunteerism.

They've allied Kitchen Bath have contributed to the uh Edgewood Clubhouse and just doing such a great job in in supporting our neighborhood.

So I wanted to thank uh Bill Feinberg and and the whole Allied team.

Uh so that was great.

I was honored to participate in the Witten Rogers uh Educational Center's annual women in action seminar, and I was there with Commissioner Beasley Pittman, which was just just great uh celebrating the students and and all the the folks that came to to be there.

That was wonderful.

Want to also thank uh our maybe we've already done this, but our chief waterway officer Marco Aguilera has left for Blue Earth Pastures, let's say.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um he just has has done a great job and and thank you for those um uh who have supported him and worked with him and the Marine Advisory Board and much more work to do, but uh, we've really set the standard for having Fort Lauderdale lead in terms of waterway quality initiatives, living seawalls, mangroves, lowering the speed on the ICW.

I mean it just pump out boat, it just goes on and on what the City Commission with Marco's uh leadership has done.

So very, very uh grateful for that.

Um City Manager, just want to touch on um uh if it's possible with Milosh and our continued good work in partnering with the county, the port on 17th Street, port traffic, and just the challenges we have a working group that I know Milo Sh is helping lead.

Love to hear just a little update how that's going, how we're trying to address the bottleneck that is created in large part by the significant number of cruise ships, conventions that are coming in now.

So thanks.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

Milo Smastory is director for the city's transportation and mobility department.

So there are a lot of traffic challenges around the port and uh convention center.

Uh we recognize those concerns.

Uh we uh created task force meeting around uh monitoring traffic and managing traffic.

Um and we hold monthly meetings with representatives from the uh our police department, uh Brouwer Sheriff's Office, uh Florida Department of Transportation, uh Miami D County Board uh division who does roadway design and those who operate signals, um our strategic communication, uh the port, uh convention center, including their supporting staff.

Um so there were a number of things that have been done so far.

So on our end, I think most impactful is what um uh our uh city's police department is doing, which is uh helping manage the traffic on uh uh Eisenhower and Southeast 17th Street, as well as US One and uh State Road 84.

I think that's the most impactful.

Uh Brouwer Sheriff's Office uh also is helping manage traffic uh inside of the port and convention center area.

Um I think that they have realigned uh resources in order to do uh that job uh a bit better.

Uh there is uh also effort uh that the county is helping with, which is uh revising some of the signage and payment markings along uh uh State Road 84, approaching the security uh gate uh for the bypass road as well, uh also making some roadway improvements uh by Eisenhower and Southeast 20th Street as well, in order just to for to uh enable traffic to flow a little better.

So those are some of the short-term improvements that uh have already been done.

Uh we will continue our discussions with uh the entire uh group, but uh in terms of some of the longer term improvements, uh one of the most impactful uh would be uh improvement uh or increase in parking capacity at the port and at the convention center.

So based on the feedback that we are getting from uh those two uh entities, there are planned improvements within the next five year capital plan for uh either one of the two.

So there is very limited parking capacity right now, and I think that uh that is what is creating some challenges.

Um additionally, um I think that improvement in transit service would also be beneficial.

And um we will be participating in uh review of uh Brouwer County's uh comprehensive operational plan, which looks at how their transit service operates currently and what would be uh most beneficial change in in the way that they operate transit service.

So uh that will be happening within the next couple of weeks, and our um uh goal is to see uh what kind of interim service as part of that effort uh could be provided uh between um the airport, the seaport, and convention center in advance of larger premium mobility plan, which is um in a process of um uh development, I would say, but uh it wouldn't be delivered before uh 2032.

So we have to make sure that we do something and do it uh quicker, even if it that if that means that uh uh bus rapid transit service or uh similar is implemented between uh this um main points of um uh interest or destinations.

Okay, thanks.

And and yeah, I think you hit on the the importance of sooner matters and the parking solutions are years off, right?

For the for the port.

The transportation, if there's ways we can expedite that sooner, I think it'd be great.

Uh city manager to move people.

The uh another factor, and it's tied into parking, but is just the traffic stacking that happens on 17th and and going into the port.

Is there anything in your view that the port of the county could do to improve that traffic stacking that's happening right now?

So what we have done, we have um installed some of the variable message signs in order to give uh drivers far in advance uh um information as to we travel lane that they should really be taking in order to get to the port, depending whether they are coming from the east or the west.

Um so our police department, I think is doing fantastic job in in managing demand because before our police was out there, uh the box or the intersection entirely would be completely uh blocked, and that is unfortunately cause of both demand and supply and also behavior of the drivers.

Um I uh think that what we can do is very limited, and I think that we will have to focus on our solution really on um increasing capacity within the port and reducing demand somehow some ways.

So some one of the solutions that I would like to focus also on is potentially working with the port and convention center to enable for some type of uh park and ride um uh opportunities, right?

So not everyone who is trying to go for a cruise has to park at the uh the port, right?

Maybe there are facilities that are a little further away that um uh and uh clients could use uh some type of bus service to get from those parking facilities to the port because ultimately every vehicle matters when we are trying to manage over the saturated roadway network.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And City Manager, this is, you know, as we've talked about, a top concern, so if we can continue to support.

Thank you.

Milo, can I I'm sorry, go ahead.

Um, but Ben, to your point though, um, you know, there is a significant amount of new passenger service at the cruise at the cruise port.

And that's great.

I think it's a vibrant cruise port, and more and more people are are finding Fort Lauderdale as the departure destination um, departure point and destination point.

Uh and and you're a member of the MPO and you hear at our meetings uh the county talking about their Primo plan and and you know, and you know, Milos, you referenced you know the port, the airport, seaport uh transportation systems, they are out in the future.

I mean, we've been talking about this for the last 25 years here in Broward County, and and luckily now we have a one-cent sales tax, which is dedicated for transportation purposes, and we will be able to tap into that money to be able to design and build it.

But it is a ways off.

And um and so a lot of people are concerned that trying to get to the hospital, which is really what the email was about, is the ambulances are choked in traffic.

So um, Chief Golan, Chief Golan, can you come up here for a second with uh Milos?

And I think there's a little bit of a misnomer into thinking that, you know, when you call for 911 emergency help, that all they do is show up in a car and throw you in the back seat and you you know and you're on your way to the hospital.

I think that uh I think that science and technology has improved significantly.

And and Chief, you had once explained to us what happens in an ambulance that um and in terms of trying to deal with trauma and trying to deal with emergencies emergency situations.

You once described that these ambulances have almost the same level of of service as one would see in an emergency room.

Could you explain to us a little bit about what your EMS trucks do contain?

Absolutely, Mayor.

Uh Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity.

Stephen Golden, your fire chief.

Uh so great question.

Uh our over the years, our our rescue units or ambulances have evolved well past just a taxi or Uber to the hospital.

Uh, they've honestly become almost many emergency rooms that are out in the field.

Uh we now carry over 40 medications, including just as early as last week, whole blood, and enable to do uh uh surgical type procedures even on scene, such as finger through acostomy, cries, and things of that nature, should they be needed.

Um talking about the traffic and the the challenge that we have getting to them.

We also have devices in our truck uh that are preemptive devices that actually change the lights and signal ahead on major thoroughfares so that we're able to change those lights.

Sometimes you will see our units taking the path of least resistance and going against traffic so they can navigate around.

Um, but they're all trained to do that.

Um ultimately, once we get on scene, we are able to render that care uh and to be in direct contact with the hospital should we need orders from the physician at the hospital.

Uh most recently in the last couple of months, we have actually gone to uh what we refer to as as stay on scene and treat the patient or stay in play, uh, where we'll work a true say cardiac event such as a code uh for sometimes 20 to 30 minutes on scene before we will move that patient.

Uh what clinical studies have shown is that staying on scene and providing that life-saving treatment on scene is far better than trying to load the patient and navigate them to the closest hospital.

We are blessed here in Fort Lauderdale having transport times that are normally less than 30 minutes.

When you look across the country, transport times to facilities that have stroke uh centers or cardiac catharizations or trauma centers are sometimes well over an hour.

Uh here in Fort Lauderdale, we're we're blessed with that 30-minute time and also having all of that equipment on the trucks to begin that treatment.

Uh just to give some numbers with the whole blood that went into effect last uh last week, last Tuesday, uh, we partnered with the local trauma center, Broward Health.

Uh so we did it a little differently than other municipalities have done.

There's only 250 municipalities or fire departments in the country that are currently offering the whole blood program, the ability to administer.

Uh all of the other programs throughout the country haven't paired up with their emergency rooms.

Um, and we took a different route here with Broward Health, being that that's the only trauma center that we primarily transport to.

It's afforded us the ability to get the c blood uh in an exchange program from Broward Health at no cost to the taxpayers.

Uh the other side of that is also blood is one of the most uh invaluable uh commodities that we have here on the face of the earth because it's harvested from other individuals.

It only has a lifespan of 21 days, and we don't ever want to waste something so precious.

So we also are in exchange with Broward Health where we exchange up blood every 14 days.

The blood that we don't use in the field is then taken into surgeries and utilized, so there's zero waste and zero cost to the taxpayers of Fort Lauderdale.

All right, great.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your uh your helping us out in understanding what what uh what facilities and opportunities we have here in our city.

So thank you.

I hope that's helpful to the people that have uh expressed concern about that.

Uh certainly getting to the getting to the emergency is one thing, but leaving from it is is also part of it.

We're growing city, obviously, you know, we're gonna have growing pains.

The the uh uh the um bypass road, uh the connector certainly has helped to some degree.

Uh we're in the height of season, so everyone wants to leave out of Fort Lauderdale and go to the Caribbean Islands.

Uh so and then people just come here as the destination in and of itself.

Pier 66 being popular now is uh also another uh destination and choke point that adds to the traffic, but and then certainly the convention center activity itself.

Um we boast about how we're we're getting these great conventions, but then we tremble when they come because of the impact that they have.

So but your concern, uh Commissioner, is is well taken and uh and hopefully our staff can continue to work with the county to try to uh mitigate these uh these uh um difficult situations.

So thank you, Milos.

Milash I just have one question.

Thank you.

Um has there ever been any discussion at any of these meetings about staggering the arrival and departure time of when we have seven or eight ships in the port.

To me, when you have 30,000 people coming and going at the exact same times, why can't they look at ways to make those ships come in at different times of the day and depart different times of the day?

Yeah, that is a good point.

I think that um what has happened over the last couple of years is that it looks like that in terms of capacity of and and number of ships that the port uh is accommodating, uh they have kept that number to the same number, which is eight ships uh maximum in the port per day, right?

What has happened over the last couple of years is that ships became much larger and also frequency uh of their arrival and departure has increased, right?

So with the frequency, I think it it it looks like that is much harder to manage uh the arrival and departure uh times.

Uh but just to maybe cover uh uh one more topic.

Um through these discussions over the last couple of months, uh we're trying also to focus on uh uh understanding a little more in the real time what's happening along the corridors and approaching the port and US one.

So we have been talking with Uh Florida Department of Transportation who has uh regional transportation management center that they operate, which is their command center from which they operate or uh oversee operation of the highways and arterials.

Our South East 17th Street was not part of that effort, but uh we're discussing with them and they are willing to help us monitor traffic conditions on South East 17.

So within the next couple of weeks we will uh hope to have a plan for that.

Typically they do it from 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

Monday through Friday, but they are willing to expand that on the weekends as well, as we see it beneficial and as part of the one of the recent projects, uh there is technology or there was a technology that was installed to help us uh monitor those uh metrics.

Uh we will absolutely explore uh to your uh point uh whether there is any way to stagger them.

Uh but again initial feedback that we got is what I have explained.

Okay, thanks.

If you could bring it up just to see what they say.

Absolutely.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Commissioner Mayor, for your support on this.

Uh Milo is another project that you've been helping lead, which has been great, is working with FDOT on traffic signalization along 17th and and the Barrier Island.

Just if you could give us just a quick update on that as well, how that's progressing.

Absolutely.

So as part of the recent project, um uh all along Sunrise Boulevard east of uh US 1 to A1A, A18 to uh South East 17 and South E 17 to uh US 1.

Um there were uh smart signals that were uh installed, uh what we call adoptive traffic signal technology, uh including some of the uh components of technology that allow us to uh uh track the performance of the uh traffic and speeds and travel times and stuff.

So the the project was completed by FDOT uh since those are FDOT owned and operated roadways, and Brouwer County traffic engineering uh is taking over the operation as they normally operate um and uh maintain traffic signals.

So um the project was completed.

Uh there was a period of time during which uh Brower County was conducting some field observations.

Um what they call optimal traffic timing patterns should be in place uh right now.

They're still conducting reviews, making certain tweaks, uh, but um again, demand and supply and also bridge operation is really affecting our ability to coordinate well signals along the corridor, right?

So any time bridge goes up, um, it affects really uh ability of traffic to move and ability of the signals to uh properly correspond or respond to demand.

Thank you.

Thanks for your work.

That's that's gonna help um make a difference.

So thank you on that.

Um two other just quick points.

This is a minor uh mayor, just kind of configuration and talking with a couple of charter officers.

Um an idea just for configuration of our room until we get to the police station, hopefully soon, is possibly moving just an idea is moving the tables where the two charter officers sit, maybe kind of perpendicular with our dais to allow them a little bit more visibility to see the public and kind of engage a little bit more than how they're currently configured, if that's uh that's something we could explore.

Uh that's up to them, you know.

Uh and certainly when we move over to the police station, we could certainly set that up perhaps in a curve-linear fashion so that we can all see each other up on the dais because in the year old city hall, we we all sat up there, scrunched up there in the uh but certainly you know it makes a lot of sense.

I know they'll feel more comfortable too.

So yeah, great.

Thanks, Mayor.

And last one, and um Commissioner Glassman and I you're on the um solid waste.

I was gonna bring that up.

Are you gonna bring that up?

Yeah, great.

I'll defer to you because they just asked me about their meeting Friday.

So I'll defer to you on that, Mayor.

That's it, Mayor.

Thanks.

Okay, great.

Um, I have a few things uh to go over.

Uh just in terms of events, uh, everyone has pretty much mentioned uh a lot of the things that we all participated in.

A couple things that were a little different though.

Um on March 5th, I attended the uh NSU uh Museum Art Teen exhibit.

This was really a great night.

Uh Commissioner Sorensen was there, and uh hundreds of young kids who are displaying their artwork, and it was a great program sponsored by the museum, uh, which to me shows how important it is to bring young people into uh and expressing their artistic talents.

And so uh it was great to see that uh it was sponsored by a couple of the big donors of the museum, so we were very thankful to the sponsors who participated in that and made it happen.

So um and the next day uh was Aina Lee's birthday party.

Uh and we were all there, and we were very uh appreciative.

Ina, she was I guess I shouldn't repeat her age, but uh it was a great birthday party.

Well, it said it on the banner, I know, but uh uh eighty.

Okay.

Uh great lady, has been unbelievable uh uh partner with the city and the community and making so much on the beach happen today.

She's been on every committee, uh been a part of the all the visioning that has taken place over the last 30 years, and uh much of the success of the beach is a result of her input and her collaborating with everybody and bringing people together.

So it was a tribute well worth uh uh where she has taken our community forward.

Um with regard to the uh St.

Patrick's Day festival and weekend, um we were visited by the Earl Ivy, who is a member of the Guinness family who uh helped uh uh march with us.

Yes, you didn't mention that.

So the Earl was there.

That's right.

I saved the big news for you, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

But we were honored with having him here.

He he really loved our parade, thought it was one of the best parades he's ever been in, and uh uh certainly we hold no candle to those in Ireland, but at the same time we feel very proud of our parade.

Uh I know the new statute, uh, if you read it strictly, prohibits us from having the parade because it refers to an ethnic organ organization and there's no national or state um holiday that's been uh made by any of the legislatures, so um uh we gotta carefully navigate what we do going forward after January of next year.

Should this uh should the governor sign that law?

Um let's see.

On March 15th, uh I presented two proclamations at Christ Church uh over in uh in uh Coral Ridge.

Uh the Nova singers uh were celebrating their 50th anniversary, and also the Florida Singing Sons also celebrated their 50th anniversary.

Um the church was completely packed and uh they put on an amazing program and very proud to have them in our community and as part of the cultural enrichment in which we all get to share.

Uh last night uh I attended at the Tower Club an event that was sponsored by the uh Hungarian economic attache from New York.

Uh he came down from New York City to uh um to host a group of uh folks mostly of Hungarian uh Hungarian American origin, and uh it was really great.

It was the first time we did this, and uh what uh okay.

Uh and uh a lot of a lot of good representing Hungary.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Anyway, um so Hungary did I mispronounce it?

Okay, okay.

Anyway, it was great.

Uh got to see a lot of new faces and and some of the familiar faces as well.

Want to thank the Tower Club for uh participating and allowing that to happen, and it was just a great event to meet some new people and to invite them into our community.

Um so next week is gonna be exciting for a number of us who are going to join the the Greater Fort Laudale Chamber of Commerce in the Washington Summit fly-in.

That's gonna start Monday and go through Thursday of next week.

I will be attending that, and uh I don't think anyone else on the commission is going.

So um uh but I'll be happy to share with uh results.

We get to meet with a lot of Congress people, uh members of the uh administration, and we uh uh certainly have the opportunity to get to meet and uh uh face to face with a lot of the folks that make decisions.

So we're very happy to have this opportunity once again.

I want to thank Dan Lindblade and the chamber for uh putting this together once again, and I think it uh always uh reaps great dividends for our city as we get to learn more and more about what goes on in Washington and they get to know more and more what goes on here in our city.

Um March 28th, that's the following weekend.

Uh we have the city's family picnic at Snyder Park.

So looking forward to seeing everybody there.

It's always fun.

I'll be serving beer from 11 o'clock to one.

Um thirsty people.

And uh let's see.

Uh also have a bartender license for that.

Oh, yeah.

Uh let's see.

March 31st is gonna be the VIP opening of the Lauderdale Tropical Bear Week at the Senesta Hotel.

Uh, I'll be uh presenting a proclamation and welcoming uh that that group who will be uh vacationing here and celebrating uh their communities uh event here in our city.

And then April 2nd, we have the Lexus Corporate Run at 6 30 p.m.

that begins next to the Browser Center.

So um uh Commissioner Glassman, put on your running shoes and uh hopefully you'll be able to make it this year.

Thank you.

Yeah, well.

Okay.

All right, let's talk about a few issues.

Um solid waste.

So uh yesterday I got a call from Commissioner Beam Fur, who um uh made me aware that there's a meeting tomorrow.

Um Commissioner Glassman, do you want to talk a little bit about what's going on there and what this meeting is about and why they want us to participate?

Sure.

Uh well, first of all, Mayor, I do know that we've been trying to schedule a meeting um to have an update on exactly what's been happening with the county uh and the solid waste authority.

Um do we have any idea when that's going to be happening, City Manager?

Because I know that we've been waiting for a while.

Sure, I'm gonna invite Brad Keene, our public works director, to give an update.

Put your push push the microphone.

I always have a problem with mic.

Um yeah, we're gonna bring some items forward in May.

Uh the county uh the SWA consultant is going to make a presentation on the future of what the SWA is to look like and participating cities, and then staff is going to have another presentation uh basically reviewing the Solid Waste Master Plan and the facilities amended agreement.

Um so those two items will be coming in May.

Uh a decision to join the SWA does not have to be formalized until July.

That's when the county and the SW are expecting a commitment from all the municipalities.

So we we have some time, but those items will come in May.

Thank you.

Um I'm glad you're giving me that debt and that information because that is very pertinent to tomorrow.

So tomorrow there is a meeting uh of the governing, I guess the governing board you can call it.

It's every single city in the county.

Um they've been having I'm gonna be really honest about how I feel about what's going on with the Solid Waste Authority and the work that's been happening.

It's been seven years.

Seven years that the county has been trying to put this together.

Um you have three cities who have automatically said we're not participating.

Pembroke Pines, which is one of our third largest cities in the county.

Second.

Second.

Well, I said one of our third.

Yeah, okay.

But second is good.

Um Pompano Beach.

They are not participating at all.

And there are many more that are on the fence.

So here's the issue.

They want to have a quorum, because they're nervous about not having a quorum to present this the master plan that you're thinking they need 19 votes to move.

The master plan.

Right.

I personally think it's premature to vote on the master plan until we actually have a discussion and we have a presentation.

I think other cities are filling that as well because they're not able to gauge their commission's approval or non-approval of this master plan.

I will tell you that really what the master plan is basically saying is very, very general and and not, in my opinion, comprehensive.

It's talking about just setting up a couple of drop-off points and then pushing everything like ten years down the road, if if I'm correct in my assessment of what that is.

Um that is difficult.

That's not a lot.

I don't even know why the county can't even do that on its own, just set up those drop-off points.

Um as a city, we have to decide if this is a good deal for Fort Lauderdale, for our taxpayers for our city.

Right now, as presented, um, the rates are not better for us.

Um if I'm remembering correctly, the the tipping fees are maybe a little bit better, but the recycling is not.

Um we we do well on our own, and we actually do more than any city in this county when it comes to everything that the Solid Waste Authority has been talking about.

Um so they they want our participation now just to be to be part of a quorum.

I will tell you that for more than two years I I was going religiously to every single meeting in way out west.

Um I was participating as well as I could uh doing that job that this commission asked me to do.

Um but then when it came time for uh the cities to get a little bit closer to forming a little bit more of a concrete organization, hiring a director.

By the way, the first director has already resigned from the Solid Waste Authority.

Um there is now an interim director.

Uh this is after seven years uh of this work.

So when it came time to select the executive board um for the Solid Waste Authority, um each of the categories were small cities, medium cities, large cities.

The large cities took it upon themselves to think that Fort Lauderdale did not deserve a seat on the executive board.

Did you ask for it?

Did you actually yes, we were all there, we were all showing our willingness to serve on the board.

They chose not to choose Fort Lauderdale to sit, which is amazing because obviously, as the largest city in the county, we produce the most tonnage.

So you would think that it would make sense that the city of Fort Lauderdale would be part of the executive board uh for this.

Again, my concerns are uh is this a good deal for the city of Fort Lauderdale?

Is there even going to be participation uh that's gonna be warranted or needed to make this successful?

Um I will tell you that we have had staff, you know, the the Solid Waste Authority also has a technical committee of the TAC, uh the technical advisory committee.

Um Melissa Doyle from our staff, um, who I consider to be probably the most knowledgeable uh of that entire room whenever I have gone to any of the meetings.

Uh she's amazing in terms of knowing the issues.

Oh Melissa?

Yes.

Melissa Doyle.

Knowing everything.

She has been attending every meeting because I was not going because I wasn't on the executive committee.

There was no reason.

And I I basically was relying on Melissa's input, Melissa's uh advice, uh, and Melissa's incredible summaries of what was happening, keeping me abreast of what was happening.

And then we were going to plan a I thought it was going to be April, but now I'm hearing it's May.

We were going to plan a very good presentation in terms of where are we, where is the county, where are all the cities on this after seven years?

Uh where are we going?

And does this make sense for Fort Lauderdale?

So that's basically what I know.

Tomorrow is just the vote on the master plan, but that's not even really it's the facilities plan that's going to be the real big vote, and I don't know when that's going to come because that's going to really decide if we are moving forward with whatever it is that they're planning on doing.

So again, um I've had these discussions with city manager, have the discussions with Brad.

Um we have to just determine whether this makes sense uh for Fort Lauderdale, or are we actually gaining nothing, or are we just going to be paying?

I I did look at some of the fees, and I think hold on a second, I'm gonna pull this up really quickly for you.

Um the latest that I saw for City of Fort Lauderdale.

Uh and I can't find oh wait a second.

I apologize.

Anyway, it it's a big number.

Is it it do what would be the alternative if we don't participate?

I mean, is that part of the presentation?

That will be learning.

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

All the things.

Because I mean right now they're not going to dump our garbage somewhere.

So we we still have our well again, we still have the the rates that we're able to do because of the county.

Uh we still we still are going to be doing the same exact thing.

Um again, it's just a matter of are we going to participate in something that hardly anybody else is participating in?

Or again, what are the advantages to the city of Fort Lauderdale if if we participate?

So that was the discussion we were going to have on April, but now May, and then we decide where we go from there.

Um but uh you know tomorrow I guess they're nervous about a quorum.

There are many cities that have just not been attending the meetings.

Um now they're I guess nervous about the quorum and moving forward with uh the uh with the master plan for tomorrow.

If there's anyone else that would like to go, I'm not going to go.

You're not going to go.

And represent the question.

I I can't go.

I can't go.

Um if not, I don't really think it's a big deal.

But we'll again we're going to have to decide what we think is the best for the city of Fort Lauderdale.

And that's where we are on this.

Well, uh, my understanding is that if we go, if someone from the commission goes tomorrow and votes to move it forward, it's not really committing the city to any one program or the other.

It's just moving the process forward.

And that's why they called me to see if I could go, but my I'm completely booked tomorrow.

Well, so how we would be voting without discussing the master plan.

I mean, is that okay that we were?

Tell us what the consequences of voting.

I mean, there's really no consequences.

It it doesn't affect whether we uh as a city make a determination to whether we're gonna opt in or opt out.

It's just they're trying to move the process along, and as part of the governance of that particular uh system, they need to get the 19 votes to get it to move the master plan forward.

All it will really do is if they don't have quorum tomorrow, it'll just delay it, you know, maybe another month or two months, and it may change their timelines uh going forward.

That's really all it does.

All right.

And and Brad, just for clarity again, the vote tomorrow would be on what?

Specifically, just the the governing board accepting the master plan that the SWA is putting forward.

Okay.

And and uh no uh uh uh there's no commitment.

Correct from the doesn't it doesn't commit the city for any way.

That's correct.

Do you find anything in the master plan objectionable?

I mean, we're gonna when we make a presentation in May, you know, we'll have our comments on the master plan on the facilities amendment.

Um there are some changes in the last four or five days that um I think the uh new executive director uh along with their consultant SES has been making.

Uh so we'll have to evaluate those changes and how they um uh look compared to the rates we're paying.

So uh but again, once we uh bring forward the item in May, I mean, all of that is gonna be comprehensively presented to the commission, so you guys will have a very clear understanding of what the benefits are versus you know what would be the other options if we don't decide to enter into uh the SWA.

And that would just be things that we can do on our own independently or in collaboration with other municipalities.

So what what are we going to do then?

We're just not going to appear.

Is that the idea?

Well, if someone would like to go, uh I I think anyone can go from the commission.

Um I don't think I think a couple of years ago we did try to get an alternate, but no one wanted to do it.

Uh I I I think if if it if anybody else is going to go beside you, uh Commissioner Glassman, you guys would have to probably just vote on picking an alternate member to go.

I think it also would be helpful if if someone does want to do that that they get a copy of the master plan.

Uh just because it makes sense to me to vote on something if you're familiar with the document, not just going to go.

Well, it's a thick document, and uh I doubt anyone's gonna be able to read it between now and then well how do we as a city just go and vote when we don't know what we're voting on.

Well, I'm not disagreeing with you.

That's why we're having this discussion.

Okay, yeah.

Um it's the commission's decision then to um to not participate tomorrow and to wait until we have a presentation before we decide whether or not we're gonna continue to involve ourselves with this with this program going forward.

Is that kind of the way I'm understanding it?

Okay.

Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

Um is there a recommendation um for you know someone going tomorrow from Mr.

Kane?

Is there a recommendation?

Um understanding that we haven't read this document, but understand we asked the question, what would be the how would it look with us not showing up is where I'm going with this.

Um is there a recommendation from Brad about which direction we could go?

We should go with this.

Brad, nothing like being put on the spot, right?

Not putting you on the spot.

No, I I I mean I think you know, our staff is going to be there to listen in to the discussions.

Um I think the I think the uh the question from the commission, the county commission was you know, we need your help to move this forward.

We're finding it difficult to get a quorum, and uh we need this process all these years, seven years of effort, we don't want it to stop right now.

So um they they want someone to at least vote yes to bring this continue with this process so that um it doesn't just stall on its on its track.

So to answer your question, Pam, uh if you could go, uh at least you could represent the city.

She's shaking her head.

No, I uh I I wouldn't be available to go.

I wasn't bothering I wasn't asking the question to be voluntad.

Well, this is the problem.

This is what happens when you ask questions.

You get volunteers.

I know you asked the question and you end up at the position.

But that wasn't the reason I was asking.

Um wanting us, you know, of course, to be in position where um we're not um in a sense um forced the show face and make a decision when we're not ready to.

Um even with that, my other question is um has there been mayor any indication of how close we are to a quorum.

You know, is it are we like the the hold it out or the the one that they're waiting to make the quorum?

Do we know how close they are to a quorum?

I I don't know the answer to that.

I'm sorry.

I don't know the answer.

And we we already know of the 31 cities, three are not participating.

So now you're down to 20 uh down as well.

But I don't think they're actually part of the vote because they never actually joined to begin with, so I don't think they're actually part of the cities.

So those cities are not.

Yeah, 28 cities, they need 19.

19 out of the 28.

And this whole discussion actually begs the question after seven years, why is it so difficult to get a quorum?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay.

Mayor, yes, sir.

Couple of thoughts on this.

Um if it you know, if it pleases the commission, I'm willing to consider um going.

Um being well, uh I'm willing to for the commission to consider making me an alternate if if it wishes.

And um, you know, if I'm I have some meetings tomorrow, but uh I might be able to move some things around.

But if I um get the material, if I'm able to j digest it and Brad, I'm gonna have to talk with you uh to to get me up to speed.

But if I'm able to get receive it, able to study it and and get in a place where I'm feel comfortable um being there and and discussing and voting, I'm I'm happy to do it.

Um but those are a lot of ifs.

Well, can we do a if motion?

Like how you understand.

That's absolutely correct.

Okay.

As long as as long as uh we know that then uh then we appreciate your your being able to do that.

Right and just just understand any items as it relates the S3 B actually will have to come to the C city commission to be voted on.

So they can't you know have not do it not by resolution so there's no way that just a yes vote just to move that process forward bounds the city to being committed to the SWA going forward in 28 so Bret if the city participates tomorrow on the governing board with the other 28 cities or whoever shows up and votes to move forward with the master plan are there any are there any ramifications to that when it eventually comes back to us in other words it's okay to vote yes tomorrow and no in the future or vice versa or we don't see that it's tying us to any thing we're not obligated we we are not obligated.

That is correct all right and and mayor if I could add another point I and Commissioner Glassman it boggles my mind that Fort Lauder is not on the executive committee.

That does not make any sense to me and any time anyone has talked to me about this that's the because that was my understanding that I've heard that's the first thing I say.

So why don't you bring that up to I absolutely will dang the if I go yeah if you go because that's it it it doesn't make to me that's that's priority number one.

They didn't feel it was a priority then but it's a priority now to have us there to make a quorum so it's interesting to me.

Well that is that leverage it's just interesting that needs to be corrected what we can do for you Commissioner Sorensen is we can try to prepare a like a cheat sheet packet for you of the key things so you know you have a little bit more understanding going into it for tomorrow and we can work on that today and make sure you have that before tomorrow.

Okay.

That'd be great and then Brad if you can get me the logistics and we'll I'll see if I can make it happen.

I think it's I think it's 9 a.m at the county uh center west of the plantation it's at one university drive the the county building and I believe it's yeah won't start until at least 9 30 because the executive committee meets at 9 a.m.

So I think earliest is 9 30.

Mayor I just want to clarify that there are two uh voting items on that agenda tomorrow so one for the master plan and one for the facilities amendment so I just want to make it clear that if Commissioner Sorensen does attend that his vote or participation might uh coincide with those two voting items that are on the agenda.

Okay.

And uh Mayor I I know Commissioner Beasley Pitman shared her availability.

Vice Mayor I want to defer to you if if you'd like to be there and interested please uh I will happily defer to you vice mayor uh unfortunately I am out of town and unable to participate I will be at my brother's memorial service up in uh St.

Augustine this weekend so unable to be there.

Okay um sorry to hear that um so then mayor I don't know the next steps that it sounds like this would have to be a a vote for well I think that there's consensus to allow you just to represent the city at the meeting tomorrow and to and to vote to move it forward and then we'll have our presentation in May.

So and and at that same time you might want to bring up the subject of your of the city being you know on the executive committee.

Happily happily and Brad you'll be able to get the commissioner also the facilities because I think that's even almost more important than the master plan.

Okay.

Thanks Brad yep City Attorney City Manager is that is consensus fine for this or I just yeah I think that's it's right Commissioner we have consensus here to send you as a delegate.

I I think I think we may need a a walk on resolution this evening.

Okay that's fine.

We'll get some clarification on that.

Okay we can figure that up thanks for thank you Ben I appreciate that.

Yeah welcome um couple of other things um you know every every year we have uh nominees for the walk of fame and um and this year we have I believe five and I believe we may be running out of sidewalk and uh we should think about reducing the number of walk of fame nominees each year from five to a lower number whether it be two or three um I honestly over the I don't know how many years we've been doing this now what ten years maybe and we've certainly been able to select the low hanging fruit like the most prominent people over the years who have been significant contributors and and uh who represent the the uh values and the history of Fort Lauderdale um we've certainly have now recognized those people and I just think that as you look at the length of this walk of fame um at some point we're going to run out of sidewalk and and we don't want to we don't want to end this program I think that it's a great program.

What ten years maybe and we've certainly been able to select the low-hanging fruit, like the most prominent people over the years who have been significant contributors and and uh who represent the the uh values and the history of Fort Lauderdale.

Um we've certainly have now recognized those people.

And I just think that as you look at the length of this walk of fame, um at some point we're going to run out of sidewalk.

And I and we don't want to we don't want to end this program.

I think that it's a great program.

So something to think about.

It's not really um uh it's it's it's on it it's you know, it's on the consent agenda.

I didn't want to hold up the meeting discussing it, but I just wanted to us to think about it, the commission at some point, uh, what we want to do on that because you may disagree with me.

I which is also fine, but I'm just bringing it to our attention that we might want to s consider reducing it from say five to three or or something.

I thought we I thought we did discuss reducing it already, and if I remember the minutes from that committee, they discussed it as well.

Did they?

Yes.

I think they do four, and the discussion was about just doing two.

But I I think that was because we brought it up first as a commission.

I know I I know that I mentioned it to the committee.

So we agreed.

Did we?

The commission discussed it at conference, and staff shared that we would go to the committee and have that discussion with them as well.

So that message was relayed to them.

And they came and they came and they had a discussion there?

I I believe so.

I deferred to the Parks and Rec team who Enrique Sanchez.

I think they did.

Please push the button.

Yeah, great.

Hi.

Good afternoon, uh, Mayor, Commissioners.

Uh Enrique Sanchez, Deputy Parks Director.

Uh that is correct.

Um so the committee did vote for this year, but they did speak about going to two.

Um in the future.

Yeah, in in the future.

Uh there's nothing holding them to that.

Uh if we do want to hold them to that, uh, it would require some action from commission saying future ones are limited to two.

Okay.

So it it depends how strict you want to do if you want to keep it.

It's up to them.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, great.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um okay, so now I'd like to talk about uh Him or She Street.

Um do we have the video in place?

I want to uh I want to uh okay, let's all look at this video.

Someone has to push the button.

Okay, thank you.

Um so obviously there are uh a number of questions that I would like to ask.

So let me begin by saying the following.

A few weeks back, we had a discussion here in the commission regarding the uh entertainment zone, and we came up with a number of recommendations.

We ended up uh settling on one or two.

Um, and we felt that that was going to be the opportunity for us to tone down the uh the atmosphere, the culture that seems to be engendered on him or she street.

We thought that the open containers were the were the answer to some of the uh um the the violent activity there.

Um it was supposedly bringing in the an unwanted element there, and so we got rid of the open containers.

We tried to reduce the hours of operation, but we were persuaded not to by a number of the uh bar owners and uh staff people who work there.

Um so the reason why this video is important is because this is what was put on the New York Post website and Fox News.

So millions and millions of people have now seen this with the moniker of Fort Lauderdale.

Spring break.

Now none of these people none of these kids are springbreakers.

Okay, these are not people that live outside out that that live outside the city.

The spring break visitors have been amazing in terms of their uh uh coming to Fort Lauderdale, appreciating what we have to offer, having a good time and going home.

And we heard a little bit about that this morning earlier today, and uh and and I commend the police department and the fire department for and parks department for all the efforts that they have done to create an environment that is safe and that is um welcoming and that sends a signal to the parents that send their kids here that we provide a safe and and welcoming environment.

This is not what we want people to see, and we don't we don't want this to happen in Fort Lauderdale.

Now I'll tell you some of the things that distressed me about this.

We saw the perpetrators, but nothing was done to them.

They were just pushed aside and and the police took the position of just diffusing the situation.

There should have been handcuffs on some of these guys.

There's absolutely no retribution that was shown here against the perpetrators.

I don't care whether they're 10 or 20 or 30 years old.

There's absolutely nothing that was done there.

They should have been taken into the into the station, their parents should have been called, someone should have come down and picked them up.

There's there all they I saw the the guy that was slamming everybody smiling as he was being pushed away, like it was a joke.

We have to give the authority to our police department to do more than just trying to defuse situations because there's absolutely no reason why these kids are not going to come back and do the same because nothing was done to them to punish them for what they did.

And with the kid laying on the ground, I mean, some have told me that, oh, he was just drunk, but I heard people say, oh, he was slammed to the ground.

He's out cold.

No matter what, this is not Fort Lauderdale.

We are making every effort to prevent this from happening again, and here it is happening again after the bar owners swore it wouldn't happen again.

These bar owners, I didn't see one bar owner out there.

The ones that came and appeared before us that that night about the entertainment district, not one of them was out there policing their own their own places of business.

So I don't know what we need to do, but we're not doing anything near what we need to be doing.

We need to be taking action.

Another thing, I saw a video of uh one of these status cars racing through the tunnel.

All right.

I think it was an Audi.

Uh nice car, but it was it was just racing through the tunnel, um uh backfiring its muffler system, its exhaust system.

Uh police officers followed it, stopped it, and uh issued them a ticket.

And the kid who was driving it had the nerve to say, oh, this is the second one I've gotten.

As far as I'm concerned, that car should have been impounded and let the guy come get it after he's been arraigned in court and has been and his case has been adjudicated.

There was absolutely no reason why that person would not do it again.

He did it once before, and all he got was a ticket.

He did it again, he all he got was a ticket.

When people drive you know cars that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, these tickets for a couple hundred dollars are nothing.

It's a night out you know at a bar.

So we unless we are willing to enforce our laws in a way that shows that we are we mean business, we are wasting our time.

And this is gonna kill our businesses if we do not do something to prevent what's going on in him or she street from happening again.

And I and and I at some point we need to know what is what our our intentions are because we are hands off.

We just want to keep things calm and we want to hopefully everyone goes away and nothing happens again.

In the meantime, I saw someone who's laying on the ground.

Next time it's gonna be a shooting, next time it's going to be someone who's gonna get more seriously hurt, and all we're gonna do is wring our hands and say, oh, you know, we have to do better.

We've got to prevent that from happening.

And and I don't know uh, you know, I don't know how to save what just what we just saw.

You when you have a national newspaper like the New York Post putting it on their website, when you have Fox News redistributing it on their website, this does not look good for our city, and we don't deserve that kind of image when we're not that kind of people.

So I I just I bring it to your attention, city manager, and I hope that we can find ways that we're going to do better, and I and we've got to figure a way to prevent this from happening again because unless there's retribution, unless there's uh consequences for this kind of behavior, it's going to continue to happen again and again.

Thank you.

Well thank you, Mayor.

May I?

Yes, please.

So on January 20th, I believe this the second meeting.

Can you speak up with that?

On January 20th, this commission had the conversation about the special entertainment districts and asked that staff come back within 90 days with an update to the ordinance to allow us to have an opportunity for those businesses that are operating under the privileges of the special entertainment districts to become officially part of the district.

We have been working on that.

We have a public meeting, our final public meeting scheduled for March 30th.

We intend to come back to the Commission with proposals that will assist in streamlining the behaviors and the obligations of the businesses in those special entertainment districts.

Our police department has the authority to enforce in any manner that coincides with their training and their observations of the current situations, and they exercise judgment in doing so.

And so our teams are committed to ensuring that Hemership and the conditions there improve, and we're looking forward to having that future discussion with the commission on a lot of the city.

Only manager, I I don't see it improving.

We just saw it happen again.

So we can't keep waiting.

You know, the the business owners, you have to do what you have to do, you do that in the course of of uh time we when you can organize them and and meet with them.

Uh I I think that was a complete dereliction of their responsibility to manage their own properties and to manage their customer base.

Uh but as far as we're concerned, we need to be more proactive.

We need to be more uh engaged, and we need to show that we mean business.

Because look, I've lived here for over 40 years.

I've seen spring break, I've seen different levels of spring break.

I see where where kids have been dragged into court because of their misbehavior, okay.

Um we cannot allow us to fall into the trap that other cities have subjected themselves to to the point where they no longer have spring break, and we've seen that happen.

And this is but we want spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

The kid the college kids are great.

They provide great business to our to our um to our business owners, and also adds to the the culture of who we are historically, you know, this is in our DNA, you know.

But when you have when you have mostly local kids who come here to act out, they probably don't even live in the city, but this is a staging area for them to just come there intending to get into a fight because that's what they do.

And we can't have that.

This is not, we don't this is not a place for them to to act them their out there, their conflicts and their disputes and their and their disagreements.

So anyway.

Mayor Mayor, I I agree with you completely.

It's unacceptable.

It's not who we are.

And we've got to do better as a city.

And when we last talked about this, we talked about eliminating open container.

We talked about eliminating on-street alcohol sales, both of which we don't we did and are working on.

And we talked about reducing the hours of this specific entertainment district.

The majority did not want to change the operating hours of this entertainment district.

I think we need to.

And let's have a discussion with this added what we're seeing.

We've got to take proactive steps.

And so are we willing as a commission to change the operating hours for this specific entertainment district.

I think we need to do that.

Mayor.

Well, they're gonna have their meeting with the business owners, and when you report back, but no one this could have happened at 11 o'clock at night, it could have happened at 12 o'clock at night.

I'm not saying we don't know that reducing the the business hours is going to really change the conduct, but it certainly changes the atmosphere of what what you know what kind of uh what kind of entertainment zone this is.

If we, you know, if it's you know four o'clock in the morning, is it creates a sort of licentious atmosphere, right?

Like anything goes.

So if we reduce that, yeah, maybe it's not going to be as as uh you know, it's not gonna be the kind of edgy environment that you know him or she has become.

So um I'm gonna defer to the city manager.

I agree with you.

Let's we need to really rethink this because I think we we just were too trusting that these business owners were going to be more uh responsible, but clearly they haven't been.

And I do want to highlight that our police department implemented an operation specific to the Him or she district in terms of stepping up enforcement and patrols, and that has carried over into the spring break period.

So we have more police officers engaged in the special entertainment districts than we would normally have had prior to January.

So we saw the police there.

I mean, they did a great job, you know, breaking it up, but there's we have to go one step further.

Well, that's because if you remember, all of the business owners at that meeting in January promised us that they were going to step it up in terms of their own security detail.

I know they were going to step it up in terms of you know improved uh funding to do all of those things, also to clean up the street.

Yeah.

Uh there were a lot of promises made at that meeting that we had, and that's what I want to see.

I want to see how they lived up to those promises.

Because 90 days takes us to what we haven't lived up to.

This just happened two days ago.

Look, I've seen worse than this.

I've seen I've seen pictures of people passed out on the street, like on the sidewalk rather, even just we're not talking about the sapphire.

Thank you very much.

Well, that was just for St.

Patrick's Day.

Um, but seriously, the 90 days that we said from the January brings us to win again.

It brings us to the April 21st meeting.

Okay.

So at the are we going to be able to have some sort of assessment given to us in terms of the promises that were made uh with regards to increased funding, security detail, all of that that was promised that night.

I mean, have have we seen it change?

Is there anything that's happening that we've seen that's different?

So, based on the feedback that we have received from the businesses thus far, and we will continue with those outreach efforts.

We will incorporate requirements in the ordinance that will speak to those promises and obligations.

And again, I also want to make sure that this is not just a blanket action for all entertainment districts because we're not having issues in all of the entertainment districts.

So I I don't want I don't want we're not having issues in all you're right.

I don't I want to make sure we're not penalizing the good actors for um what's happening, you know, in just one area, really who's talking?

Yes, um, Commissioner Pan.

Um when we say the special details that the um business owners said that they would also um hire.

I think our expectation and definition may is not coinciding because when I hear um hiring additional detail to patrol their businesses, to me that's just the doors, um the entry door and beyond.

When we talk about the roadway, all of this that we witness on this video are individuals who are walking the street.

We we didn't see one incident where they were actually um well, I didn't notice one incident where it was actually saturated around one business.

This is traffic that's moving um back and forth um along that on Hemistry Street, and we said no open containers.

There was no one, I didn't notice anyone walking with open open containers.

So there's some this we need to dig a little deeper with this.

Um these are what I'm observing.

People just come into the area to do what they're doing.

So we do need to have that balance to also provide an opportunity for those business owners.

I I before I agreed that we needed to specifically look at him or she and what was going on in that area, not affecting good actors versus bad actors.

But again, a lot of what was on that video was individuals that were walking that that corridor, it didn't have seemed to be specifically coming from one business per se.

All right.

So City Manager, you'll get back to us uh after your meeting with the business owners and also work with the the police chief to come up with possible solutions as to how we're going to better enforce that area.

Yes, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Um that's it for me.

Uh oh, wait, wait, one more thing.

Um with regard to an update on the mediation with Inter Miami.

Um when we uh when we last had this discussion at the city commission meeting, the uh uh vice mayor had said that he now want he his he went back to his community, and his community indicated to us that they did not want pickleball course anymore, and that they wanted more of an open field.

And um, so we met with Inter Miami this week, and um we got yet another redraw of the of the site.

And when uh when does it coming up, uh Raquel?

Mayor, can I weigh in on that for one second?

So let me just let me put my let me finish.

Let me let me finish.

Vice Mayor, let me I I just wonder I just wanted to if if I could, I just wanted to correct that slightly.

It's not that they don't want pickleball.

Um what they want or the multi-purpose playing fields for the kids.

They don't want an open field.

We already had an open field.

What they want is a multi-purpose playing field, soccer fields, football fields, things like that.

I just want to I just want to clarify what what what the community is looking for is a multi-purpose playing field.

Okay, okay.

And when when we when is this when did we decide we're gonna come back to the commission on this?

The request was for April 7th.

I didn't hear you.

April 7th.

April, the first meeting in April.

Correct.

Right.

So uh so just to give you a little heads up, the the redraw of the site does include a multi-purpose playing field.

It in fact it consists of a full regulation size soccer field.

So I think everyone will be very happy to see the result.

And uh, and I'm gonna make a presentation uh of my most recent meeting uh at the first meeting in April, which is our next meeting, and uh and hopefully we can move forward and finally get this park built.

All righty.

So so that's that's actually what I would like to weigh in on.

So under Heather, prior to me, uh there were many, many workshops and charrettes held with the community to talk about what this park was going to look like and the design that went forward very much reflected all those meetings that she had had prior to my coming on board.

The only change I made was like I said, the addition of just pickleball to what had been uh formerly a an empty space.

Um I would like to have an opportunity to socialize whatever the current drawings look like with the community.

I think my community needs to have a workshop and an opportunity to see what the cuttered c current iteration looks like.

And so I know that there are plans out there, but I haven't seen them.

So as a district commissioner, I'm requesting an opportunity to circulate these and have a workshop with my community because again, they've invested years in the design of this park, and I I think it would be premature to do much of anything, vote on anything until the communities at least had a chance to look at it.

Well, no, so again, I'm trying we're trying to find ways to move this thing forward, okay?

And okay.

So uh here, you know, we're going on seven years now, and um uh and and it's and that many iterations of of trying to redesign this.

And each time we do a design, it costs the city money.

Uh up till now, Inter Miami has been paying for the redesigns.

In fact, they even paid for this redesign.

So they've been very good partners in all this.

There's been spending hundreds of thousands of people.

I have to correct you on that.

They did not pay for the previous one.

Please do not interrupt me.

Let me finish.

I don't interrupt you.

Let me finish.

They've been they've been uh great partners in this and paying for the many hundreds of thousands of dollars of design fees that is taken to get us to this point.

Also keep in mind that the um this is part of the mediation and part of the dispute resolution, and so the design that uh we've come up with includes requests on their part as well as requests on our our part.

Now, the last design that we came up with, which was presented to the commission, included uh modified parking area as well as the uh pickleball courts, and we were ready to move forward on that.

Uh um I don't recall your asking for uh community outreach at that point, but uh we did it, we changed nonetheless at your request, and we and we took away the pickleball courts and we had a multi-purpose field uh included.

So I don't have a problem uh you know you're seeing the uh the proposed design between now and the next meeting, and if you want to circulate it around to the community before before the next meeting, that's fine.

Um but after next meeting, this next meeting we need to just vote and move forward on it.

So I I think we can all be cooperate in that regard, and I think that uh I think you'll be happy with what you're going to see, and I think the community will be happy knowing that we can move forward with their with their vision for that area.

All right.

I I I don't think so.

So I just I want to formally object to uh moving forward with anything until I've had a chance to workshop this with my community.

There's there's no instance where we do something that affects a park in any part of the city without involving the community.

We were just talking a little bit earlier about one stop and and what did Commissioner Glassman say?

We need to share this with the community.

I'm simply asking for the same consideration for District One.

That's what I just said.

I said we might have a workshop before we before we before we vote on it.

I'd like to have a workshop.

Well, I don't have time to organize a workshop between now and April.

Well, how many months are not realistic?

How many months do you need?

How many months do you need?

Mayor, we've to your point, we've we're going on we're going on seven years on this.

I don't think another month or two isn't gonna make any of the things that we're gonna do.

Well, that's why I'm asking how many months do you need?

I I I don't know.

I just learned about this literally today.

So uh you know you're you're asking me to to give you an answer on something when I have absolutely no information whatsoever.

I don't know what the plans look like.

You know, the one question I asked was whether or not Joe Webb, the engineer who's been working on this for the last five years, who's intimately familiar with the FAA's requirements, was involved with this at all, and I was told no.

So the person who knows the most about like you want to put this in the middle of the field.

Well, you know, lights don't go there because it's a landing path for the runways.

Right.

So, how many months do you need to to go out and reach out to your community?

Uh at least at least a month to organize a workshop, Mayor.

At least a month.

So a month would be uh the second meeting in April at a bare minimum, yes.

So talking about the first meeting in May?

That would be fine, yes.

So you'd rather just come back in May?

Yes.

All right, so you realize you're just delaying this another two months after you have insisted that this whole process has delayed the the uh the the creation of this park and that your community has continued to lambass the commission for its delays and its refusal to move forward on this.

You want to when we can actually wrap this up at the next meeting based on all of your requirements that you have requested the commission to come up with and we we responded to all of your requirements.

But I haven't seen the plan yet.

So I I don't even know what the plan looks like.

I haven't seen the plan.

I don't know what it looks like.

I don't know how it reflects what we've asked for.

So what what I asked for, so I'll be very clear.

What I asked for was that we relocate parking and put the playing fields back to where they originally were and move the parking over to where pickleball is.

And from what I've been given anecdotally, it does not sound like that's what you've done.

So I don't believe you have in fact done what the community has asked for.

So that's why I want to see it.

Know what it is, take it to the community, show it to them, have them have an opportunity to weigh in.

Fine.

So you mean we do this for the same thing.

Yes, please.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, I have no nothing further in my reports.

Um city manager, do you have any reports?

Just to clarify it, Mayor.

So we will share the you can share the design.

You can share the design, the proposed design to the commission, to all the members of the commission, and uh, and then we'll have it brought back in May.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right.

Just had one other item, whenever you're going ahead.

Okay.

I just wanted to um I know we all got this email, but I just wanted to call out and celebrate some good news.

Our um government finance officers association awarded uh City of Fort Lauderdale uh distinguished budget presentation award for FY26 budget.

I guess it's the 42nd year, Mayor, that we've received this, and then in addition.

That was gonna be in my report.

Oh, sorry.

Well you'll say it much better and in much more interesting way.

So I'll defer to you.

Thank you, City Man.

Well, I I didn't know what you had next, but I I do want to celebrate uh the team.

We are an award winning team, so shout out to the Office of Management and Budget under the leadership of Director Laura Reese.

So congrats, Laura.

It is the forty-second year, but we gotta keep it going, right?

I also want to congratulate uh Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue on achieving the Commission on Fire Accreditation International Reaccreditation for the third uh consecutive time.

So congratulations to Chief Golan and his entire team, uh the men and women of our fire service are matchless.

Then we have our parks and recreation department also award winning.

Uh last weekend they received a Naturscape Emerald Award uh in conjunction with Broward County for the work they did at Riverside Park in terms of the renovation and um preserving existing trees and the way that we uh situated the playground was very much environmentally conscious.

So congratulations to Carl Williams and his team.

He's out today, but Enrique is standing in his stead.

Other than that, I do want to recognize several city departments, um, probably too many to name off the top of my head, but we just concluded our parade season, and I know you all mentioned the St.

Patrick's Day Parade, but uh during this time of year we had the Martin Luther King parade, we had the Cis Drunk Parade and Festival, and then we concluded with St.

Patrick's Day and our Parks and Recreation Department, Fire Department, um, police, strategic communications, public works, transportation mobility, and a host of team members from other departments assisted in making those events memorable, enjoyable, beautiful and safe for everyone to enjoy.

So thank you to the entire team.

Uh we also want to recognize that uh we have various members of our team, our teams who have been participating uh in enhancement opportunities in terms of training, and we have a few members of our team who have received awards and we're putting those out via letter to the commission, but if you have an opportunity to give them a shout out or respond and share with them that you congratulate them, I think it's also very meaningful.

Uh they don't all get recognized here at Commission, but we try to communicate that very proactively.

So thanks again to the Commission for all the support and for our wonderful team for all their efforts in keeping us at the highest level of achievement.

This weekend we have the group violence intervention program.

Uh there's a walking one stop occurring at Provident Park uh under the leadership of Commissioner Beasley Pittman and District Three.

We're piloting this program uh in coordination with Fort Lauderdale Police Department, Chief Schultz, and Captain Will August have been very instrumental in seeing this program launch, and this is just the next uh iteration of community engagement and outreach events in support of reducing gun violence in our community.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

That's happening from 12 to 3 on Saturday at Provident Park.

Thank you.

Does that conclude your report?

That concludes my report.

Okay.

Uh City Attorney, do you have any report?

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I just want to uh address the appointment of uh Commissioner Sornson to this um for the meeting for tomorrow.

The uh resolution appointing Commissioner Glassman appointed him as the primary but didn't designate a process for an alternative.

So we're going to prepare a walk-on resolution for you for this evening, and you could formally appoint Commissioner Sorensen to go tomorrow.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Ben, for doing that.

Okay.

Uh there being no further reports, then we'll continue now with our business one.

This is the A5 Sanitary Sewer Lift Station Presentation, Public Works Department.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll begin by sharing uh an update at the January Commission prioritization workshop.

Uh we had a brief discussion about the one stop site, and there was a footnote uh to that discussion and it related to the A5 Lyft station, which is very much needed in order to promote development in our downtown.

Uh the city team has been expeditiously and diligently working toward advancing the city hall project, and the city hall project uh can only move forward with a new A five lift station.

And so our hope is that we can ensure that this project moves forward expeditiously so that we can also advance the city hall project and meet the expectations of our commission and our neighbors and stakeholders.

This time I'm going to turn it over to O'Neill Rodriguez, our assistant director of public works to walk through the presentation.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners.

As Manager Williams mentioned, today we'll be presenting an overview of the proposed sanitary sewer lift station A5, including the need, a little bit of a background, some site considerations, and the next steps.

And staff will be seeking commission direction on the preferred alternative or the preferred location, so we can proceed with the final design and implementation.

So to give a little bit of overview of the sanitary sewer lift stations, they are a critical component of our wastewater infrastructure.

It allows sewage to be pumped from the lower points to higher elevations when the gravity sewer is not sufficient.

These stations, they move the wastewater through forest mains to our GTL wastewater treatment plant, ensuring reliable and continuous service.

Now, a sewer basin is the defined geographical area where all the wastewater is collected and directed to the specific lift station.

Everything within that boundary flows to the same point in the system.

And the lift stations are typically located at the lowest points within a sewer basin.

And as you can see in this picture, it gives you a graphical representation of how they work.

They come in into the lift station, we have pumps that pump that sewage into our treatment plants.

Now, the city of Forlotterdale currently has approximately 190 lift stations here.

And our system capacity is measured using what is known as the nominal average pump operating time or NAPOT.

And the industry standard, it is a maximum of 10 hours of pump operating per day.

So when that threshold is exceeded, it indicates that the system is under stress, which can reduce equipment lifespan and reliability.

And in those cases, it is recommended approach is to split the sewer basin to redistribute the flows and restore capacity.

Although our curry lift lift station for A7, the NAPOD is approximately seven hours per day, with the anticipated development that we have in this geographical area and the future development that we anticipate to come online.

We already have commitments of approximately 15 hours per day.

What this means is if those developments were to come online, we'll be above the industry standard of the 10 hours of pump operating time per day.

Another way that we can see this, or we can look at this is this particular lift station has three pumps.

Right now, one of those three pumps is operating 24-7.

The second pump, it's operating more than half the time.

So the intent for that second pump is not to operate more than half the time.

It is intended for it to be to operate when we have high flows of sewage.

Now to address this concern, staff is recommending splitting the A7 basin and creating a new basin, what we that we would call A5.

This will increase the operational capacity, improve system reliability, and extend the useful life of the existing infrastructure.

And I want to highlight that the modern lift stations are designed with order control units or systems that are that can reduce the odors by more than 99%, and they operate at noise levels between 40 and 50 decibels, which are lower than a normal conversation.

It's that one percent that's the killer, but go ahead.

In total, this includes two projects in review, 10 approved projects, four projects of the construction, and 15 that have completed have been completed.

So as we can see, this level of growth, it's placing an increasing demand on the existing system.

Therefore, the creation of the A5 basin is necessary to support both the current and the future development.

At this time, four development projects require the construction of the A5 in order for them to receive their certificate of occupancy.

In addition, future development in the area, including our new City Hall project would also depend on this infrastructure.

So the city is required to treat the water that they that they the that they produce, right?

So yes, it's part of the process that they have to go through.

Sometimes they have to pay impact fees to the city that then is used for projects like this.

Don't they have lift stations within their own projects that process the effluent that that's produced within the building?

It depends on the type of building that they're that they're built.

Looking at some big buildings now, right?

Correct.

So Chris, help us out here.

Sure.

Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager.

So from a development services perspective, we have not had um new developments build their own lift stations within the project itself.

They have contributed to the creation of lift stations that will serve their project, but they're always on a pub piece of public property or a public utility easement out outside of their project.

Um there are some communities that do allow and do have developments create those lift stations within their development site, but we haven't we haven't done that here in Fort Lauderdale.

Is that a practice we should we should we should consider?

So I will leave that.

Is it a big burden?

Is it I mean it only makes sense that if they're building a whole community of you know three or four hundred units that you know they should they should be required to do to create their own lift station because these are expensive.

Yeah.

Yeah, something to think about.

Sure.

Yeah, all right.

Thank you for that thing back, Mayor.

So the A5 lift station um once implemented will reduce the pump operating times of the A7 pump station, lift station preserving its capacity and extending its life cycle.

The estimated timeline for design permitting and construction of the A5 lift station is approximately two and a half years.

However, the advancing of that design requires the selection of a site for this lift station.

And this particular slide illustrates the existing boundary of A7.

That's what you see in the shaded purple, and also the proposed A5, which is in the green um outline.

So the proposed split will redistribute the flows and improve the overall system performance within the downtown area.

So city staff evaluated potential locations for the A5, and in evaluating these locations, staff consider several criteria.

So the four sites that staff evaluated were the city hall site, the city hall garage, the one stop shop site, and also the community court site.

And now we're gonna go into a little bit into each one of these and present some of the advantages and disadvantages.

Oh Neil, before you go further, I just want to clarify that in addition to the four sites being discussed today, staff looked at the entirety of the area of the basin and identified these four sites as potentially viable.

We also in prior years looked at a privately owned site as an opportunity.

And so I just want you to be aware that we have looked at many more uh potential opportunities, but these have presented as the most viable.

Well, to date, I mean, as far as the city hall site is concerned, there isn't a huge area there that we can uh uh allow for uh you know a 50 by 50 block that this is going to create.

I mean the footprint of the new city hall and the and the chambers is gonna take up uh you know most of the area as well as the plaza that was intended.

So, where were you thinking of putting this on the city hall site?

I saw the backup, it wasn't terribly clear.

So that's a very good question, Mayor.

So that would have to be discussed with um in coordination with the city hall developer.

However, the city hall developer has already said that indicated that there's not sufficient space at this site for the lift.

So why don't we move on then?

Understood?

Yeah, move on to the next one.

So the city hall, the second one would be the city hall garage site.

It is a city-owned facility and similar to the city hall site, um, it is located near the force main.

However, it presents several constraints, including the limited vertical clearance of approximately 16 feet.

Um, we would need a minimum of 20 feet vertically, um, and this would restrict the maintenance access.

Also, um, as you can see, there would be a loss of parking spaces, would be limited construction area, and a need for the structural analysis.

And as we mentioned before, in order for us to be able to accommodate that minimum 20 feet vertically, most likely a portion of the second floor would have to be removed, which is imperative for that structure analysis to see if it's viable.

So considering everything you've just said, why was this considered a viable site?

So from break up the break up the garage, lose 20 spaces.

Uh, I mean, why was this even added to the as a viable site then?

So, from a constructability perspective, any of these four sites can potentially work.

However, as I mentioned, they all have their pros and cons.

This being one of those negative um aspects of it, which is would be the structure analysis that we were required, having to retrofit the existing structure and perhaps reinforcing it in order to be able to accommodate a lift station.

So let's move on there then.

The third site um is the one-stop shop site, which this one offers several advantages from an engineering and construct constructability perspective.

Since this particular site has not been developed, we don't have the um restriction from a vertical clearance.

It provides 2.75 acres.

It allows for easier reversal of gravity sewer flows with fewer utility conflicts, and the lift station can be placed outside of the vehicular site triangle.

Oh, no, what one moment, Mayor?

Mayor been notified by uh the district three commissioner that she is unable to hear the speaker.

I've shared with uh the clerk's office.

I'm still not sure if she's able to hear.

And that's been going on for a few minutes now.

So I just want to put that on the record.

Thanks.

So something else to consider when with this particular site is the future impact of the site planning.

This location provides the most flexibility.

And also additionally, any concerns as I mentioned before related to noise and odor can be effectively mitigated through standard design features.

And the last but not least, um, the community court site.

Um it is not a city owned property, so therefore it would require acquisition.

And the most recent appraisal was approximately 2.5 million dollars back in 2024, and with an asking price of three million dollars at that time, which exceeds the current project budget.

There would also be impacts related to relocating the community court and addressing the active lease on the property that extends beyond through extends through 2027.

So here this is a matrix of the four alternatives.

Um it summarizes how each site compares across the key criteria, including the ownership, the cost, the constructability, and also the operational visibility.

With this particular slide, I wanted to highlight examples that demonstrate how lift stations can be designed with appropriate screening and landscaping to minimize the visual impacts and integrate it into the surrounding community and therefore make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Um this is based on lenses learned from prior projects that we've had in our city.

So if we were to go back to the one stops shop site, where would you recommend that that go?

On the southern port part?

So in theory, it can go anywhere within that particular site.

Right.

We would also work and to see with the programming of what the future site will look like, but primarily we were looking at the southern w southwestern corner in the vicinity of that area.

What's that way is closest to Broward Boulevard, which is where the main sewer flow would be coming from, and therefore the shorter distance for us to have to reverse the flow of the sewer.

So from logistical point of view, that's makes the most sense.

And also from a practical point of view, it takes it away from the hotel and also the residential, which is on the north end, right?

Correct.

Isn't the building just on the north side of the site?

I think it's the shooting range.

Is hasn't that building been for sale for a while?

You know which building I'm talking about?

Yeah.

But I don't know about the sale.

I thought that I thought that that building has been for sale for a while.

But you're saying this it b it makes more sense anyway, to closer to Broward Boulevard because all the pipes are going in that direction.

And so you don't happen to have a rendering of what it would look like if you were to put something on the southern part of that site, do you?

And not at this time.

We're still in very early stages of the preliminary design.

What I can say is from a screening perspective, we will work with our internal departments, um particular our development services department, go through the DRC process to make sure that we have the adequate screening and make sure that this feature gets incorporated into the community.

Okay.

So as you go forward, if you collaborate with them to be able to integrate something like this into whatever design they have anticipated.

I like the next slide that you have, which is the uh the deck next one after that, the decorative features of how these can be integrated into a cityscape instead of just what you did at the Peter Felvin Park.

Hopefully, we could do something a little bit nicer.

We still don't have that painted, do we debt?

So we have two opportunities to beautify that lift station.

We will be doing some landscaping, and we also have the artistic mural that is going to be implemented.

Is he back from vacation yet?

Spring 2026.

Okay.

So, Mayor, to your point, um, that would be the intent.

Should the one stop um site be selected, we would work to make sure that um all those features it's planned with the future um uh planning for that site.

Okay.

So uh the last slide, um where these are the next steps.

We're requesting commission feedback and direction on the preferred site location, and once a site is selected, staff will then proceed with the final design, the perimeting and construction.

And just to close, um, this is a very important project for the city in order for us to be able to maintain a reliable wastewater service, our continue to support our growth within the downtown area, and also um protecting our infrastructure.

So staff is ready to move forward once we receive direction from the city commission, and I'm here to answer any additional questions that you guys may have.

Any questions for the commission?

I do.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

So in terms of what you have seen recently in these kinds of lift stations, anywhere really in the country, uh my my concern with one stop, and I I I understand the benefits, but can we guarantee if you go back to that screening that that slide?

Um, I want to make sure that if we do something like this and we choose one stop, that we are going to do something artistic.

And we are going to do something in terms of mitigation of any odors.

Is that even an issue anymore with these lift stations?

The I know, but the old the older stations, yes, uh, especially if they don't have an odor control unit.

Um, the new ones now it it's standard practice to install this order control units, and from personal experience and the ones that I've been part of, it does reduce the smell significantly.

Um you can hardly smell, and uh as the mayor pointed out, the 99 percent uh of the odors get reproduced.

I just want to make sure I saw that and I heard the one percent comment.

I just want to make sure that that really is just one percent.

Correct.

Okay.

And then so I'm looking at the one with the landscaping.

Where exact is the lift station behind all of that landscaping or enclosed by all of that landscaping?

So that particular the larger picture, it has a fence around it, and then within that fence is the lift station, and then beyond outside of the fence, um, you have the landscaping to shaded.

Is this part of the part of the Los Alas Marina?

Yeah, I just want to make sure if that's what we're talking about.

That's correct.

Yeah, because that's beach place.

Okay.

Um good.

I so you feel confident that if we were able to put it in that open space that we would be able to mitigate any of those concerns.

We do, and then we'll work very closely.

I guess like I said, uh, from the lessons learned to make sure that we have a product that the community uh enjoys and it's not a good thing.

Let's talk about you know, chicken and the egg.

So we are in the process of hopefully going to be reimagining the one-step shop site.

Um had a good meeting last night.

Do you think that moving forward the timeline for the lift station is going to come way before we ever do anything in terms of that site redeveloping it?

Or what's what's the timeline here?

I'll I'll let's begin by sharing that we've done some preliminary design work already that would be conducive to the one-stop site.

And it is anticipated that we would need to move forward with the lift station, likely in advance of the reimagination of one stop and however it will be implemented.

As you know, we have to do a lot of outreach, planning, design, permitting, identifying the funding.

Uh so those things do take some time, even if we expedite that.

Uh, we feel that if we don't move forward with the lift station quickly, it will put the city hall timeline in jeopardy.

And so just we're thinking from that standpoint.

If the city hall project wasn't a factor, uh certainly we could you know wait a little longer and maybe have more of uh an opportunity to wait to see how the reimagination of one stop proceeds and then you know tie in the lift station.

But I think there's opportunity for collaboration uh to identify a location that would work best from start to finish.

What is the timeline for constructing the station?

So we're estimating um somewhere between two and a half years and three years from can finalizing the design.

Wow.

Uh right now we're at 30 percent design, so which is very critical for in order for us to continue that we finalize the site and then we'll go through the procurement process and construction.

So we're estimating between two and a half and three years.

Actual construction is how long?

That could go between a year and a half and two, depending on unforeseen conditions that we might find with the underground.

Once you're once you're working with underground, it's you you can hardly ever know what you might find.

All right.

It's just an estimate.

So we're t well, I know you've mentioned City Hall several times, so you we just heard it's three years for this to happen, the lift station?

That's worse case scenario.

We we think that we can get it done sooner, especially since we've done some preliminary design work uh related to this site.

So, how does that factor in when we've been talking about opening at least the commission chambers of the city hall, not the tower by fall of 2028?

Well, I know that the developer has proposed uh timeline.

We're still working through uh the specifics of that timeline, and we have not yet come to a final determination as to uh what the project timeline will be.

We do intend to share that with the commission as we continue to discuss with the developer, and we'll be bringing forward the interim agreement uh in April.

So we should have some more definition around the project schedule by that time.

I know what is desired.

Uh I and I think we're trying to find the most practical and feasible way to get there.

Uh but again, with no matter what the timeline is, without this lift station, we won't be able to achieve the state.

But what about just the let me chime in on this?

So if you look at the existing city hall that we had, right?

There were hundreds of people that work there and the sewer systems were working fine.

So what the new city hall contemplates is just the commission chambers.

So it would be very, very little impact uh uh to the system over what was was already being accommodated.

So I think to your point, I don't think we have to worry too much about it because the system should already have the capacity to handle whatever we're gonna do for commission chambers.

Yes, it's going to be different when the tower is built, but that's not contemplated for less than three years anyway.

Well, that was going to be my next question.

Are we planning to be able to just have the commission chambers open, like we said in the fall of 2028, even if this lift station is not completed by that date?

And we could always make sure that everyone that goes to the commission meetings, no one can go to the bathroom.

Right.

I do I do want to factor in that there are other projects that are contingent upon this lift station and have received approvals from the city uh in anticipation of this lift station being developed.

So as private development progresses, you know, we can't think of the area as being in a standstill and that city hall is the only project that is going to be coming forward.

So I just want to give you that context, and I'll turn it over to Chris if he has anything else to add.

Yeah, yeah, I'll just add that as far as development approval is concerned when we have a project like this that's been programmed partially full, I think it's fully funded and then partially designed, we're able to um condition a certificate of occupancy on the achievement of this project being completed.

So we could look at it from that perspective.

So I think the development permit approval is not so much of a concern, but we'll want to be very mindful of the timeline for CO of any of those facilities to make sure that we're able to open those when the time is right.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, does that complete your presentation?

Yes, sir.

Any other questions?

Do you have any other questions?

Pam, John, any questions?

Pam, you have another question.

No questions.

Thank you.

No questions.

Okay.

I I don't have any questions, just a comment.

I've gone through the presentation.

My my takeaway from this is that really the City Hall garage is the best location for it.

I never been a big fan of when it was located in Peter Feldman Park.

And I don't think putting it in one stop if that does become a park again, which I think you know the neighborhood would like to see, makes any sense either.

I think the least impactful area from a pedestrian uh user perspective is in the city hall garage.

People park there once in the morning, and they typically may go out to lunch, uh, but other than that, they're not gonna see it or walk past it again until the end of the day.

So I think from that perspective, the least visible, least odor-present place you could possibly put it is in the in the city hall garage.

There are some engineering challenges, but nothing that can't be overcome.

So that would be my recommendation.

I I don't think the park is the right place to put a uh a lift station where kids are gonna be playing and people are gonna be congregating and spending you know hopefully hours of their time recreating.

And and there are odor control devices, but that doesn't mean that odor doesn't escape.

Um so I I think that would just be the wrong location for this, my opinion.

At all.

So to that point, maybe if you can just address if you look at that slide, the city hall garage site, what are we talking about when the bullet point says requires structural analysis for viability?

What what are the concerns about viability and what are the concerns about the structure?

So with with that particular site, um, first of all, the first floor only has 16 feet of clearance.

You break you need a minimum of 20 feet of clearance, which means that from just from the get-go, a portion of the second floor may have to be removed in order for us to be able to accommodate that clearance.

Also from lessons learned from other uh another uh lift station uh uh A7 is also within a garage.

And from conversations with with our utilities department, there's some um issues or concerns that we have with our particular one when it comes to the maintenance.

Um it is a confined space.

Also the the type of equipment that would be required in order to maintain uh maintain a facility within a confined space would be different.

Um also uh that provides limited access for VAC trucks and to clean the wet walls.

So it also altogether increases the time that staff has to spend in maintaining those structures.

Um so from that perspective, that's some of the concerns that uh the city staff would have.

What about the gravity sewer reversing would be challenging?

What makes it challenging?

So you would have to cross so the in order right now you would have to bring the gravity on 2nd Street, Northeast 2nd Street, bring it south along Northeast First Avenue from Broadward Boulevard.

So from Barbara Wilvard North and then east on second, so that's a much longer run.

Um you would have to cross a lot of utilities on Andrew on Andrews Avenue, which at this point may be unknown.

That in itself would create uh challenges that we perhaps may not know necessarily until we open up the road.

Also the cost uh in order to do uh a longer gravity sewer rerouting, it's a lot more expensive.

The longer you go, the more expensive it is.

So is there any standard with regards to building something like this facility?

I would almost say indoors, a garage.

I mean it's in an enclosed structure versus just outside.

So the standard primarily is to have an open space um like the ones that we have throughout the city.

Uh on very rare occasions we have them within um in closed areas.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can I ask you?

I'm sorry, Mayor go ahead, Mayor.

I was just gonna say, let's go back to the one stop shop building, okay.

There was a concern that because the current tenant has a long-term lease, uh, but the the tenant doesn't occupy the whole building, correct?

I think you mean the community court.

I mean a community court.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

What I'm sorry, Ms.

The Community Court.

Yeah, sorry.

So there are two portions of the building.

One is what we use for the community court program, and then there is a convenience store operation on the western side of the building.

That's where they that's where the that's where the convenience store is.

Correct.

Right.

But it doesn't take up the whole space.

The convenience store does not occupy the entirety of the building.

There's a portion of the building that is utilized and leased by the city for the community court program.

Right.

So if we were to buy the building and then cut the building off where the convenience store is, that way they can still live out their lease and the balance of the balance of the site can be used for a pump station, a lift station.

I I think it would be possible and and require a renovation.

I don't want to uh speak prematurely, but I I do think it is possible.

I mean we don't need I mean it's much easier than thinking about we're gonna break up the parking garage, you know.

That's that's not that doesn't even make sense because we would compromise the whole structure by trying to break through the second floor.

So um, you know, but looking again at the at the community court building, it's a very long building.

I know I've been in that convenience store.

It doesn't take up maybe a third of the site, and the rest of it would more than accommodate a uh a a footprint for the kind of lift station that we're contemplating.

Trist, Chris, what do you think?

So I think we'd have to do some analysis and evaluation.

There's some things that I would want to look at to consider, which is are there shared mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems that would be disconnected should the eastern be removed?

Yeah.

Also structural components, roof components, you know, would that portion of the building that remained, you know, what would it take to short and keep that structurally sound?

The other thing to keep in mind is there is a proposed development just to the east.

So by using the community court site in that eastern portion of it is particularly we would be pushing that more towards that future development site.

So again, just some considerations, things we'd have to evaluate to understand if that's a potential solution.

Okay.

I I'm just trying to think outside the box here of how we can how we can best accommodate this lift station, knowing that the further south we go the better.

And uh and also keep in mind the county is now contemplating um its government center just to the east here, just to the west, and they too are going to need uh the underground systems that we create in order to accommodate this.

I think they I think they're talking about 700 employees in their building.

So just a thought as we move forward without having to write off the whole community court site as uh unavailable, but in fact um we could certainly cut the building in half and still be able to use the site.

And honestly, has anyone really approached the tenant?

I mean, they really want to stay there if they do, uh you know, that's their prerogative, I guess, but it it shouldn't interfere with the operations of the city because a small convenience store wants to stay there.

You know, that's their business, that's their livelihood.

I don't want to take that away from them, but at the same time, you know, we have we're we're building our city, and we can certainly consider buying that site um to be able to accommodate the needs that we now have.

So just a thought to keep it in mind.

So mayor uh I would be smaller suspending several million dollars to buy a building tear down.

Who's talking about Commissioner Herbs?

Uh Vice Mayor Herbs, we can't hear you.

I'll try this once again.

So I just want to go on record that I would be opposed to spending $70 million simply to tear it down to build station.

I don't think that's a good use of uh of our resources.

Okay.

Commissioner Sorrison.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

So, City Manager, what would be based on this conversation, what would be the next steps?

I I'm seeking consensus from the commission on a location that we could determine as the site.

If I haven't heard that yet.

Okay.

What I might have missed this, but from a cost perspective, do we have estimated cost perspective of one stop garage community court?

So I'll allow O'Neill to go into that a little bit.

I know there's some bottom lines based on the location of each site and tying in and you know the distance to Broward Boulevard and the work that has already been done.

So we have an engineered estimate of what it would take to conduct the sewer rerouting for all sites.

Um any of the three sites require a sewer rerouting.

For example, the one stop site, which as the manager mentioned, we've we've done some preliminary design um with that particular site, it would take approximately 1.3 million dollars to conduct the the sewer rerouting from Broward Boulevard to the potential location within the site.

Okay.

Um the city hall or the city hall garage be selected, the cost for the sewer rerouting would be approximately 2.1 million dollars.

So that gives us a delta of seven um 767 um thousand dollars.

And then with the community court side, it took a lot closer to Broadway Boulevard, so the Sur rerouting would be approximately 700,000.

However, you would have to factor in on the cost to acquire the property, um, which based on the cost um that it was selling for in the past, the three million dollars, that would bring us to a cost of about 2.3 million dollars.

But we've been talking about buying this property anyway.

So um uh, you know, because it's it's good for the city to own this, uh just you know, and now we have an actual use for it other than community court.

I mean we'll we were prepared to spend three million dollars just to put community court there when we can fact you know put uh a uh lift station there.

Um the enabling uh the enabling uh infrastructure that you just spoke about that's that's significant.

You know, 2.1 million dollars to bring to bring the pipe work over to that site.

I don't think we that makes sense.

Uh it's an unnecessary expense, but anyway, you can calculate that in your proposals.

And then I thought we had completely rejected the idea of buying that building.

No, we hadn't I don't think we rejected anything.

We did at a previous meeting because we had a discussion about using uh about using CRA funds to acquire that building for community court, and I believe it was Commissioner Glassman who said that's not the vision that we have for gateway to the city.

At the time of that discussion, it's my understanding that the commission opted not to move forward in that direction.

Right.

We said we don't want to buy that building because there's better uses for it than what we had intended for it.

We I don't think I don't think a list station is a better use, but just my opinion.

There was a lot of concern from the flag liberal civic association at that time.

They had actually said not they didn't want us to buy the building.

They did not want us to put community court there, right?

But they also didn't want us to buy the building.

They thought that, well, the building's been for sale for a long time.

It's what are you gonna do with that site?

It's like they thought the price was too high, um, and they were just concerned with what was gonna happen there.

Um at that time we did say no to the purchase of the building.

Right.

So what what does this what is the neighborhood feel that that site should be used for?

It's already got a it's already got a convenience store there.

Right.

And I have not had those discussions.

I did have some earlier discussions with the neighborhood folks about doing some sort of a uh possible substation in that area because they were concerned with the homelessness issue there and just the general upkeep of that little corridor.

So there was some discussion of that, but other than that, I have not re-engaged on that particular site in terms of a purchase or a use.

I wonder if we could talk to the county to use some of the bus station, which has which has 20 foot ceilings, and they don't use the whole bus station.

I mean it's another it's just another option, uh, and it would certainly accommodate their new government center better as the as they're going to need those facilities for their new project.

So I mean again, we're thinking outside the box, but we have to really think of all options because we're not seeing an we're not seeing an optimal choice here.

So anyway, we I mean that someone should consider to contact in the county and see if they would be willing to allow us to put a substation, uh left station rather in their bus station.

Anyway.

Yes.

Okay.

Um I'm looking at an email that I received yesterday, and I'm I'm thinking we all, as the commission received this email.

Um it was from the DDA.

And in that email, they were indicating that they were look like they said, let me I'm trying to bring this up on my phone.

Hold on one second.

Um but they were saying in this letter um that they believe that there are more options to locate the um lift station.

Another site.

So the DDA is indicating that they have some suggestions for other sites.

Um do we want to um direct the city manager to hear maybe where those other sites are as well that may be beneficial?

Well, lucky for us, we Jenny Moorehone is here and she's asked to speak, and we can find out from her directly what those other sites are.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Hold on.

Yeah, thanks.

Mayor, can I keep completing the question?

Okay, thanks.

So O'Neill, thanks for so you gave half of the cost, I think, which is the sewer rerouting.

So the other part of the cost is the building of the actual lift station, is that right?

Correct.

That would remain the same regardless of the location.

Okay, so the cost of the list station would be how much to build.

So the the budget for this particular project is about one point five million dollars.

Sorry, eleven point five?

Sorry, eleven point five.

Okay, I was gonna say that seems like a good one.

Okay.

Right, exactly.

Two for one.

Um great.

So it's eleven point five million.

So that would be for one stop.

Now it sounds like if I was hearing you right, the city hall garage is gonna require significant structural change to the city hall garage.

So wouldn't that then cost more than eleven point five?

Definitely.

Uh the numbers that I pro that I provided to you just from the sewer rerouting itself, um, it would be approximately um 767,000.

And that's not including the structural analysis that would be required because we would have to do a certain uh we would have to look at different aspects of the building uh in order for us to be able to determine whether or not in fact that structure can be modified further.

And also take up parking spaces too, right?

The loss of parking, correct.

Because I know like the community foundation of Broward is planning on moving from Las Solas to 200 North Andrews, and they've already inquired with us about seeing if we could lease them parking spaces in our parking garage, which is already we're already tapped out.

So I'd hate to lose any parking spaces there.

That's the that's another concern.

I agree.

So we do we know how many parking spaces we would lose?

I'm still talking.

He's still talking on.

I I apologize.

You asked the parking number of parking spaces.

I was just wondering if we knew how many parking spaces we would lose.

Okay.

I want to just kind of amplify that.

I'm sure I think I think O'Neill said 20, maybe.

Is that how many parking spaces we lose?

So the standard parking space is about eight and a half by sixteen um in no the square footage.

So in order for the area required would be 50 by 50.

Um so we would have to see ultimately the loss of parking spaces would also be where within the structure it falls under.

So is from from now right now is it's kind of hard for me to give you an exact number.

Okay.

And and then O'Neill, would there be a potential impact to the second floor?

Correct, yeah.

That's that second floor and the first.

We lose up on the second floor also.

Okay, so there's for City Hall Garage, there's a loss of parking, unknown how many spots.

Right.

So then going back to the cost.

So for City Hall location, it's 2.1 million to reroute.

Then walk me through the other costs for city hall.

There's then what?

You said it sounded like you said design or analysis.

So that would be a conversation that we would need to have with our city hall developer.

Um we would have to see how the proposed programming uh then potentially be impacted in order for us to accommodate.

So at this time, it's hard to say what additional cost uh would be incurred should the city hall site be selected.

Hold on, I'm saying city hall garage.

Oh, city hall garage, my apologies.

Oh, is the other question?

So I'm I'm trying to figure out uh city manager.

Um I'm trying to figure out the cost uh for each option, total cost for each option.

So for one stop, I'm hearing you say the total cost for one stop is one point three plus eleven point five.

No.

So the budget for one stop is one point five.

That already includes the sewer rerouting and the one point three um that would take for us to reroute.

That's already incorporated five.

Great.

Should we should we select the city hall garage?

That would be eleven point five plus the 767 approximately.

You said 2.1 million for the city hall garage.

That's what that's only the number for the sewer rerouting.

No matter which site is selected, those sewer rerouting would be required.

So from the the what would change that could what could potentially change the cost of depending on the site, it's how long the sewer rerouting would be.

So City Hall and City Hall Garage are farther away, therefore they would require a longer stretch of reroute.

So to answer the commissioner's question then, what is if we located in the City Hall garage, do we have a number what the all-in costs would be?

That would be approximately two uh 12.2.

12.2.

That's not taking into account the cost for the for the structural analysis.

That shows construction.

Right.

But probably not taking into account the cost to having to retrofit the existing building.

Okay, so we don't know that number yet.

Okay.

Okay.

Great.

And then for community core, we're looking at again 11.5 million total plus the purchase price.

Is that right?

Correct.

Okay.

So you're looking at, let's say it's purchase price is three million, so you're looking at 14.5 million.

But would there be any savings there in terms of the uh the the routing of the effluent because it's closer to Rero Boulevard?

Correct.

That'll be approximately 6.57.

I mean, sorry, 600,000, 700,000 savings.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

And then the bus station, which the mayor shared, which is you know, I think worth exploring.

Um you'd look it probably the total all in would probably be again around that 11.5 million range is is that is that fair.

Okay.

Um tomorrow you can tell the county we'll vote for their plan if they let us do that.

Let's work together.

Let's work together.

Come on.

Collaboration.

That's right.

Come on.

One team.

Come on.

Okay.

Thank you.

That helps me get a sense of cost.

Um a tunnel.

Yes.

Throw in the tunnel.

Come on.

They're feeling generous.

I can sense it.

Excellent.

All right.

Mayor, thank you.

That helps for me for cost.

Again, I'm gonna always say this.

We need to choose the most cost effective solutions as we face a very unknown budget environment coming up.

So okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Any further questions?

I think it's the best one.

I don't know.

I want to is Jenny gonna be a good idea.

Yeah, I agree.

I want to just say if she's any further questions of not a moment.

Okay, Jenny.

Jenny Moorhohn from the uh uh Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority.

Good afternoon, Mayor Commissioners.

I wish I were coming up here with here's the site, it's free, and let's move because we know that this is an incredibly important infrastructure investment, and we've been talking about it for several years.

Um I think where the DDA board was a bit caught off guard as an entity, maybe not individually, but seeing the four options presented last week and not having uh maybe a chance to restart some of those conversations on other lands within the area that may have happened years ago, knowing that some market trends have changed and maybe there are some unique new opportunities.

So certainly we don't want to see a slowdown of this important project.

Um, but I have received input from at least four different board members at the meeting last week that said um we would love to sit down with staff um looking at alternative options to make sure with the information you're presented with today that the best option for the long run is presented.

Uh this in many ways has nothing to do with whether DDA participates or not in one stop shop.

It's really about how are we looking at this for the benefit of the long term and um you know so that was the request simply from yesterday that was sent to you all.

Could we take one more time to engage private sector developers and landowners in and around this area to have you know a round of conversations?

And I think that comes in line with when these important infrastructure investments are being decided.

You know, how do we engage together one team?

I think I heard a little bit earlier on on these solutions.

Um there may be some properties that are barely even shown on this map that are still within the basin that some preliminary analysis has come forward, but I don't have those today that I can say pick one or the other, but we would like to have one more conversation or the first conversation.

But we would like to have one more conversation or the first conversation.

Yes, I mean it's still a work in progress, and and uh again, maybe reaching out to the county uh since they're reconfiguring their their land sites.

Maybe we could uh work with them to see if we can incorporate this kind of this kind of need to accommodate their new structures as well.

So I was gonna ask Jenny, Jenny, I'm sorry, how quickly can we do this?

I mean, I I just feel like we need to really get going on this.

I don't I I don't think we have a lot of time here, especially because of what we know that's coming in terms of downtown development, and what do you see as getting everyone together and I think we can have a meeting as soon as uh schedules are available and make that a priority if if that were be to be tomorrow, that would be wonderful if not early next week.

Um we know that's the same.

Have you actually heard of um I know you mentioned that you don't have right here is the place and it's not gonna cost anything, et cetera, et cetera.

But have you heard of possible solutions or alternatives?

Again, you look at the vacant property that surrounds uh the one stop shop, for instance.

You look at some underutilized property where there it's closer to Broward Boulevard.

Um, we through board members, whether direct relationships, I mean that's the value of the DDA partnering with the city is having that knowledge on the ground of some of the private real estate interests and where there may be opportunities to coordinate so that it's still a cost uh potentially cost feasible project that can move faster, even so.

So, city manager, how quickly do you think we can have this kind of a meeting?

Where you can meet with them and I think that we can prioritize having this meeting.

I know that this has been a conversation for a number of years, and so we welcome ideas, even if those ideas are shared with us in advance of the meeting, potential locations and options.

You know, we want to make sure that the project can move forward expeditiously and also in a very economical fashion.

Uh so if there are private property owners that have recommendations or there are sites that we should consider.

Uh I want to keep all the considerations in mind, but we will prioritize having this meeting, but anything that can be sent to us ahead of that meeting, we would evaluate it as soon as possible.

Okay, that's great.

So I'd encourage everyone, let's let's get going.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Jenny.

Anyone else wish to speak on this item?

Okay, there being none.

Thank you so much.

All right, moving on to uh business two presentation of the evaluation.

Yes.

So I I do want to set an expectation, you know, that we have this meeting, and then we will come back to the commission uh as soon as possible.

I think uh no more than uh 45-day window to come back to the commission with a follow-up to this discussion.

Okay.

All right.

Uh okay, uh business presentation, business two, business business two presentation of the evaluation of the unsolicited proposal submitted by IKE Smart City for the Interactive Digital Kiosk Program, Development Services Department, City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

You may recall that I shared with the commission uh back in January a letter to the commission related to this unsolicited proposal for the Ike uh digital kiosk.

At that time, uh the city was still having a lot of conversations about the Los Alas Mobility Project, and now that the commission has uh made a determination for us to move forward.

I think it is timely uh for us to proceed with this conversation as directed by the city commission.

So I want to turn it over to uh Chris Cooper to walk through the presentation.

Thank you, Chris.

Good afternoon, Mayor Commission, Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager.

And before I go through the presentation, I just want to let you all know that there are representatives from Ike both here in the room and also one joining us virtually.

So they'll be here to answer questions.

And I also believe they have a presentation of their own that they'd like to share following our presentation to you.

So for the proposal timeline, we received this proposal as the unsolicited proposal on December 26, 2025.

It came with the required number of copies of the proposal as well as the 25,000 dollar check that's that's required to initiate this process.

Uh the city manager sent an LTC to the commission following that LTC, the commission asked staff to look at the proposal a little more fully, do it more of an evaluation and bring back some feedback to the city commission for consideration as to whether or not to move forward with the process.

So Ike Smart Smart City is a is a company that provides interactive digital kiosks.

Um they're a media company.

A lot of what's shared on these kiosks are advertisements and public information and wayfinding.

They have existing partnerships with some cities currently nationwide, about 25 cities, including some here in Florida, such as Aventura, Coral Gables, Miami, Miami Beach, and Tampa.

These kiosks have interactive features.

They're touch screens so people can navigate the information and resources on the kiosks through that touch screen.

There's a variety of applications that can be customized and made available on these kiosks.

Part of the benefit is they promote local business advertising, wayfinding.

It helps to share city information, has information about events and festivals and other things going on in the areas at which they're located.

They could function as you know for things like surveying feedback, all sorts of different interactive tools.

The operational model, Ike has an in-house team that includes project management, designs, software, advertising sales, the construction of the kiosks, maintenance, and the revenue sharing concept that I'll share here in a moment.

So really high level, the proposal promotes some financial benefits to the city.

Suggested that we were to look at 30 kiosks in locations that are mutually agreed upon.

These areas are really based on places where they're high visibility.

There's a lot of use of these kiosks, and you know, they're really worthwhile.

So part of this is going through a collaborative process to see where they might go, should we enter into an agreement?

Really, the benefit to the city, other than the ability to share information and provide a resource for our neighbors and visitors, is a revenue sharing model.

So in the proposal that states that in the first year, years one and two, there's 20% of net revenues, and those revenues come from the advertisement sales on the kiosks.

And then this also contemplates up to a 20-year agreement.

So in years three through 20, uh the proposal suggests the 35% revenue share.

So the uh proposal breaks down what that could look like, depending on how those sales look.

Um, in the first 20 years of the agreement, which is the term proposed, the city could look at about $684,000 in annual revenue, potentially a total of $13.7 million over the term of the agreement.

Again, uh the civic benefit, Ike suggests they'll provide the city with 12 and a half percent of all advertising time to be used by the city.

So, you know, we could certainly use it for things like advertising our events, public service announcements, different things.

Um, you know, and then there's also some other public benefits related to other entities, including nonprofits that we've discussed, could potentially share some information as well.

Again, the contract term, what's proposed is a 10-year initial term with a 10-year auto renewal.

That auto renewal would be subject to Ike meeting certain performance criteria, um, which includes maintenance, update of the software, um, providing electronic monitoring of each kiosk 24-7 hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, excuse me, um, that Ike will replace the hardware components, internal networking as needed.

Ike won't be in default of revenue share obligations, and that Ike has uh kept those kiosks in the content with the most up-to-date and relevant information pursuant to a plan that's developed in conjunction with the city.

Uh, some potential benefits that when we reviewed the proposal, we thought were worthwhile to share with the commission.

Um, top of the list would be the potential revenue to the city.

You know, I've discussed the revenue share and what that could look like.

Um, there could be some curated local business advertisements and exposure, a way to promote our local companies and businesses.

Uh, wayfinding.

We've talked a lot about wayfinding in the past in the city, both downtown on the beach and some other areas where we have high traffic.

So this could provide a wayfinding solution or a part of a wayfinding solution.

We could promote our city brand.

So looking at events, information, things the city has going on, this could be a way where we could get that information out and get that visibility.

Public information notices, public art displays, part of what we saw in some of the revolving images that were displayed on these kiosks in other places were public art displays that could be curated and shown within that rotation.

And then emergency communications, both in terms of what's presented on the kiosk, but these kiosks also have a function where there's an emergency button, if you will, and a speaker, a two-way speaker that could be set up and used so that somebody could contact an emergency service should they need that emergency service.

So we also did a review of you know what this could look like in implementation.

So our development services staff looked at the uh proposal, and you know, these are all things that we think are worthwhile to consider.

And should the commission decide to move forward and we're looking at places to install these, these are items that we would probably look at.

Uh, one is the authority to place these.

So when we looked at where Ike was proposing some of their installations, they're not our rights of ways.

So we would have to work with those agencies, work with Ike to make sure that we have the appropriate easements and authority to put those in, specifically areas like A1A where it's an FDOT right-of-way, that would be important for us to make sure we're engaged and and have all the agreements in place needed to make those installations.

Um locations, again, um, you know, these are meant to be in high traffic areas, lots of visibility.

So with that, you know, we're also looking at things like the proximity of the intersections, whether or not they're in a site triangle, which is the area of the street where there needs to be enough space for a vehicle and pedestrian at those intersections to be able to have clear visibility to be able to safely navigate the roadway or the crosswalks.

Um also underground utilities, anytime we're putting something in the ground, we want to make sure we're not putting them above or in a way that would interfere with an underground utility, and then ADA compliance, you know, making sure the sidewalk remains wide enough so that you know ADA considerations can be met and people can traverse those sidewalks clearly.

Public realm impact, you know, these are things that would be installed and again, very high visible, high high transportation, high trafficked areas.

We want to make sure that they don't detract from those from that public realm.

So when we look at the beach, Los Oulas, some of those areas, again, we just want to be mindful that when we look at the installation of a kiosk, because they are large, we just want to make sure they're not taking away from that public realm that they're actually enhancing the public realm and providing an amenity to our public.

And then the last thing that we touched upon is is usefulness, and I think you'll hear a little bit more about this from Ike when they talk here in a minute.

But um, you know, everybody has a smartphone now, so I think something that comes to mind is you know, why do we need an interactive kiosk that can provide directions, wayfinding, information on a restaurant nearby or what have you, um, when we all have a lot of that information in our pocket.

Um, I think what you hear from Ike is that they work very hard to make sure the information provided in the kiosk is curated in a way that's it's relevant, it highlights local businesses and make sure that things that you may not find just in a Google search or Apple Maps request are highlighted here because they're more local and they're something that we want to promote and highlight in a way.

So the information provided again is is I think meant to be more curated and more specific to where the kiosk is located than what you typically find on your smartphone.

So with that, um again, what we're looking for today is if the commission would like us to kick off the unsolicited process and which would mean we'd come back with a resolution to accept the proposal, um, identify a public benefit and initiate a competition period.

If there's anybody else out there that has a similar product or concept that would compete with this proposal.

Um if that's not the case, um, you know, the commission may want to seek more information from us and Ike to bring back for further discussion.

And of course, if this isn't something the commission would like to move forward with today, you could tell us that and we could reject the proposal and move on.

Okay.

Um thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Uh you indicated uh city manager that the representative from uh some smart city has a presentation, but I have Matt Sacco who just signed up for questions.

You don't have a presentation, do you, Matt?

I don't have those.

I'm sorry?

I do not.

Oh, I didn't think so, no.

The representative, I believe, from the company is available and on online.

Yes, I'm available for questions.

If you guys have any, um, staff's presentation was wonderful.

I feel like it covered a lot of the key points to the extent that it's helpful for us to speak to our experience installing on FDOT right-of-way, for example.

We've done that in Miami Beach, Miami, and Aventura.

So I'd be happy to give details on that piece of things or elaborate on the benefit of the kiosks um beyond what a smartphone can do, if that's helpful too.

But um, you know, I defer to you all on the questions that you have and how I can be helpful.

Okay.

Um let me ask you a question, Chris.

Uh I had thought when we first discussed this that we were going to do like a like a trial uh trial um option where we just put a couple out there to see how they work.

This proposal says 30 right up the at the beginning.

And I'm concerned about I'm concerned about um sign pollution, you know, having so much of it, especially on the beach.

Um was I mistaken in thinking that we were just gonna do a uh pilot program and and just put a couple out there just to see how they work.

Yeah, I don't recall if that was part of the conversation with this proposal.

I do recall conversations in the past where we've talked about something like that.

Um what I will say is what we found through our evaluation and looking into this, especially in other places is that the rollout of these, you know, it doesn't have to be all 30 at a time, you know, it could be it could be a handful at a time.

We could see what they look like, see how they feel, see how the public reacts.

Um, and we also would collaborate collaborate closely with Ike on where those locations are again to make sure that they're not you know one every block or something like that.

So um, you know, I I think there could be opportunities, and I'll let Anna um share if there are, but I think there are opportunities to roll this out without doing all 30 at one time to kind of get that okay feel before we go over.

In addition, in addition, Mayor, uh there's there's potentially an option through discussions with the uh proposer uh to identify the appropriate number for Fort Lauderdale or various corridors.

So they've presented 30, but it could be that the commission and staff and the proposer, you know, has a conversation about what the ideal number is and what works financially.

Uh so it could be 30, but you know, the city could say, hey, we'd like 32, or the city would be a good one.

We want five.

We you know want a fewer numbers.

So well, I I'm the reason why I ask this is because I know there's a point uh where it doesn't become profitable.

I think I'm I don't know whether it's profitable with one or it's only profitable with 20.

I don't know how that works because um uh these these dollar figures are based on 30 and they look all very rosy and exciting, but I don't know if if those numbers only are achievable if you have large if it does if you have a larger scale operation.

So just uh at some point we need to know that.

Um a couple people have signed up to speak.

So what do we hear from them, and then we can uh let the let the commission then have a conversation.

Do you want to ask questions if anyone um we can ask questions now if you want?

All right, all right.

I want to add two quick points too, if I could, Mayor.

So one thing I failed to mention and I did want to touch on is that you know we do have our we have our ULDR which does reference signs and advertisement and off-site advertisements, so we may need to look at our code and potentially bring forward some amendments to allow for this type of advertisement and conversations with Ike in our evaluation.

Um we were told that that's not uncommon that some cities have had to make adjustments to their code to allow for this type of advertisement, but I do just want to highlight that that may be one hurdle that we need to overcome should you go down this path.

Okay.

All right.

All right, Commissioner Glassman.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Chris, thank you, Anna.

Um, I I do have some questions.

Um basically I'm gonna ask questions uh of Anna just to get a reply to staff comments that were in the backup and some of the items that you mentioned, Chris.

Um of the questions or some of the concerns from staff, I think I actually already found the answers.

I'll point those out, but that seemed to have been already in the proposal.

Um so let's let's just look at those comments.

So they were general comments.

So Anna, talk about, and Chris did mention it, and it's also in the backup, that everyone has a smartphone.

So isn't this an outdated concept?

Can you just address that?

Yeah, absolutely.

And by the way, I'm sorry that I'm not there in person today.

I am nine months pregnant.

I am due any day now, so I appreciate you accommodating uh me virtually.

So, yes, the kiosks definitely serve a different function than a cell phone.

They are a discovery tool that does not allow for paid placement when they are being interacted with.

So if you were to click on the eat and drink application on a kiosk, it's gonna sort all of the restaurants and bars and you know, dining establishments in the area based on proximity to that individual kiosk.

If you were to Google or Yelp, you know, coffee shop near me, Starbucks probably has paid for the elevated placement within your, you know, within Google or Yelp because that's the business model of those um search engines.

And so by not allowing for that, it really will highlight what is local to the area and help people discover all of the best options that are around them.

And you can sort and filter, you know, by food type and price point and review ratings and then send directions to to your phone as well.

Um the other thing that's different between the kiosks and your phone is that it's a messaging tool for the city in a way that you're you know, someone's cell phone would not be.

So um it was mentioned in the staff presentation that one of the eight slides in that advertising loop is dedicated to the city, plus any unsold time, which our business is very seasonal.

There are gonna be some times when the kiosks are at sell out, and there are gonna be sometimes other than the one of eight slides that the city gets, and there are gonna be some times where there's more room for the city to promote its events and initiatives in that ad loop.

And so it gives the city a tool in the public right-of-way to communicate with the public, you know, the things that they they want to get out.

And that also goes for um public safety announcements and emergency alerts.

You know, we work with FEMA to automatically pull in those types of alerts into onto the kiosk, and so that helps, you know, communicate evacuation orders or severe weather warnings to the public, and especially to those that you know maybe don't have a cell phone as well.

And then there is emergency functionality on the kiosk.

So there's the option of having security cameras and an emergency call button that would enhance public safety in a way that you know your cell phone your cell phone wouldn't have you know a security function or security camera functionality.

Um the kiosk create free Wi-Fi as well, which is especially useful for international visitors, um, which it can be a uh or people that have a cell phone but no data plan, so that can also be uh a great benefit as well.

And then the ability to display public art.

Um we work with local artists, we pay those local artists to display artwork on the screens.

We actually have a community engagement team that is solely uh dedicated to finding those local artists, working with local small local businesses and nonprofits and making sure that they uh get to advertise on the screens as well.

So that's another another key benefit of the program.

And then, of course, there's a revenue stream to the city, which your smartphone does not generate a revenue stream to the city.

That's it.

Uh okay, thank you for that.

Um we have had this discussion a little bit, and it's also a concern in the backup in terms of how you decided about the number of 30 uh of the kiosks.

Tell me what you have in the other cities in South Florida like Miami, Miami Beach, Aventura.

How'd you pick 30?

And if you could just address that in terms of if there is a concern uh about that number.

Absolutely.

So in Miami, we have 150, but Miami is a very different city than some of the other cities that we're in in South Florida.

It's much more sprawling.

Um, in Aventura, we have at least our contract is drafted as at least 20 kiosks.

Um, and we are installing to that 20 number.

In Miami Beach, it's interesting.

Our contract is for 30 kiosks, but in two phases of 15.

Um, and we're installing the first phase of 15, and then the city gets to decide if they want to expand beyond that.

We would certainly be open to a phased rollout here, and we of course would work with the community on which locations make sense in the city on which locations make sense and ensuring that all of them are ADA compliant and you know on sidewalks that have a sufficient width and are going to be really highly utilized.

So we are very open to conversations about phasing the rollout.

There is um, you know, 10 to 15 is usually kind of the minimum number that it makes sense to launch with, just from you know, in a to make the it makes sense for both sides of the equation, both us and the city, but we are we're flexible, and uh the the proposal was actually for up to 30.

Um, and so we we definitely can look at a at phasing the rollout.

Thank you.

Uh, engineering had commented that um majority of the proposed locations are on state or county right-of-way, not the city.

We also just talked about uh other agencies when Chris did his proposal uh presentation.

Uh they say it's unclear how or what mechanism would be needed to permit the kiosks and would be an additional liability for the city if you could address that and how that worked in the other cities in South Florida that you've installed these in.

Sure.

So in Miami, Aventura, and Miami Beach, we actually the city um and we're we're the authorized agent on behalf of the city to like submit the permits and and things, but the each city has what's called a um master memorandum of agreement with FDOT that allows for the installation on FDOT right-of-way.

And we have a form agreement.

We actually created it for the city of Miami, and then we ended up utilizing the exact same form in Miami Beach, and then again in Aventura, and it just outlines all of the Florida Green Book standards for installation and all of the things that you know the types of permits that um FDONT wants to see us pull for each of these kiosk installations, it outlines the review process.

And so my recommendation would be for FDOT right-of-way to utilize that same form agreement.

Um, it was an administrative process through FDOT, so FDOT was able to sign it without it needing to, you know, have any public process uh associated with it, and in all of the other cities that were in where we have one of these F-dot agreements, the FDOT agreement and the agreement between the city and Ike were approved during the same meeting just to ensure that we would be able to install an F dot right-of-way.

In terms of county right-of-way, we actually did work with Miami Dade County to install, but I I understand that Fort Lauderdale is not in Miami Dade County.

My recommendation, because there's just a handful of locations that were on county right-of-way, would be to focus on city right-of-way and FDOT right-of-way, at least for the initial phase, just because those two have a much clearer path to permitting an install.

Thank you.

What about the question that was in the backup about the safety issue for passing vehicles?

Is it distraction?

If you could just address that.

Sure, yeah.

So the kiosks are there's they're relatively small, right?

There's the screens themselves are 65 inches on the diagonal.

Um there is no documented, you know, evidence that these do cause us a safety concern for drivers.

I think there's there are things inside of your car that are much more distracting than something that's on the sidewalk, but really these are of a size and format that they are more pedestrian-oriented, and so we we have not seen any uh safety issues come up in any of our cities.

We haven't seen any reports that they create safety issues.

Um we would of course comply with all code standards, so set back, you know, setbacks from the curb, complying with sight line triangles, um, just to ensure that they are placed in locations that will not create safety concerns.

Thank you.

Um there was a comment about them uh not being able to be placed within 10 feet of underground utilities, but I think you have addressed that in the proposal uh on page 27 as I read it.

It looks like you do make sure that you hire a civil engineer to assess these locations, uh, and then you basically make sure that everything is going to work.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

We would hire a local civil engineer and we would submit for permit for every individual location and ensure that they meet all code standards, including utility offsets.

Okay.

And all other and then also it does say the um one of the comments was that they will require electric source to function, which will generate monthly costs.

But I believe again, in your proposal on page 20, um, you manufacture, you install, you operate, you maintain at no cost to the city, and that includes the electricity, right?

So how does correctly how are these powered up, all of these kiosks?

So typically we work with the public utility, uh Florida, Florida Power and Light to connect to underground power.

Um in some cities, like in Miami and in look some locations in Miami Beach, we've been able to connect to you know, city street lights or things like that if the city allows that.

But generally speaking, we would be working with Florida Power and Light to establish new service and to instant to connect to underground power, and we would bear all costs associated with every aspect of the program, including utilities.

Okay, thank you.

Um planning did mention uh about who would maintain the kiosk, but again, I think in your proposal, you do tell us on page 61 that you are responsible for uh all the maintenance issues, including cleaning uh and um basically taking care of it with your technicians out there five days a week and even on weekends if I'm not mistaken.

That is correct.

Our contract would outline um all of our maintenance obligations, but our typical uh maintenance obligation is uh five days a week, boots on the ground, someone goes out there and cleans every single kiosk.

One of those days would be a weekend day, and then we also do 24-7 electronic monitoring, so we would be alerted if a kiosk were to go down.

Thank you.

And we have heard from Chris that there are some issues that we might have to deal with in terms of code amendments because of the signage.

Um had experience working with the other cities in terms of how they might have to have had uh amendments to their ordinances that you'd be willing or able to share with us so that we can do that as well.

Absolutely.

And in some cities, we've even been able to avoid amending the sign code, and we place a new definition for interactive wayfinding kiosk with advertising in the public right-of-way code.

Um, so we we could share plenty of examples in South Florida and nationwide where we have done very narrow code amendments that you know don't allow for the proliferation of other types of signage, but um really narrowly allow for this type of technology since it sort of is um a unique type of signage.

Thank you.

Um again, we've discussed just briefly um pedestrian connectivity and mobility.

That was also a comment from planning that these kiosks are inappropriately placed, distract physically and visually uh from the pedestrians.

I want to make sure that nothing is set in stone in terms of these locations and that you will be working with staff.

I know that I have received letters from uh I know a lot of these places where you're planning on putting them.

I've received and I've seen letters of support from the Central Beach Alliance for the Beach, Flagler Village Civic Association, Coley Hammock Homeowners Association, Sailboat Bend Civic Association, and just today we received an email from the downtown civic association.

So do you work with neighborhood associations in terms of placements as well as working with city staff?

We do.

We of course defer to the city on how they want us to engage with the community, but our typical standard is we work with both the city and community organizations to work on not only the placement but also the content on the kiosks.

And you know, every kiosk can look different in terms of branding and functionality by neighborhood.

Um and we learn about that through our conversations with the community.

And so we do a lot of it on the front end, and then once we have an agreement in place, uh that collaboration continues into discussing kiosk placement and then content as well.

Okay, because that's going to be, I think, very important with the different neighborhoods uh throughout the city where these eventually get placed.

And my last concern and question would be the comment also from planning in terms of ADA accessibility.

Uh I know that throughout your proposal you have addressed this, but if you could just quickly talk to us about that ADA accessibility issue, yes, our kiosks are ADA compliant.

Um they are cited to be ADA compliant.

The functionality itself is ADA compliant.

The screen, you know, can ship down for a user in a wheelchair.

We also have a fully blind solution that is um endorsed by the National National Federation for the Blind.

Um, so we should be covered in terms of ADA compliance and accessibility.

Thank you.

And that's my final question.

I want to say thank you because I have heard from several of my neighborhoods in the district.

Um, and I'm I'm hoping that others have well.

I have not heard any negative comments, only positive, and people really looking forward to seeing something like this in our city, and uh they think it would be uh a good addition and a good benefit.

So thank you for answering all my questions.

Great, thank you.

Uh anyone else have any questions?

Okay, so yes, I would.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um in regards to um going back to the city manager's um letter to the commission, um, what's highlighted there is outdoor advertising.

And my question um would be to city manager to staff.

Um it's regarding the opportunity that is um basically given to the boys and girls club.

I understand that there is a a current agreement with the boys and girls club where they are generating um 200,000 a year from bus benches or trash reciprocals.

How does this um affect that agreement if we go into this type of um P3 with um this company?

So, yes, Commissioner, we do have that agreement with the Boys and Girls Club, which is set to expire in 2028, but we've had a long-standing agreement with them that we've extended uh on multiple occasions.

I'm gonna ask Milo to just kind of share really quickly as to what that agreement entails, and then uh to the extent that it might impact this opportunity.

Thank you very much, Manager Williams.

Good afternoon.

Once again, Milo Schmidt's daughter is director of cities transportation and mobility department.

So the agreement with the Boys and Girls Club uh dates back um to 2008, actually, even prior to that.

Um it accounts for about 430 uh bus benches or benches uh that provide for provide for static advertisement at either bus stops or convenience locations.

Uh it also accounts for about uh 50 threshold receptacles and about 50 superior thresh receptacles that also uh allow for recycling and advertisement uh on the body of uh those.

So uh in terms of the agreement, again, as manager Williams stated, uh that agreement expires on uh December 31st of 2028.

Um so agreement can coexist two agreements can coexist.

Uh we generate over 200,000 through Boys and Girls Club um agreement now.

The revenue generating opportunity or how one might affect the other uh would be something that we would have to determine down the road.

Um it's a different type of advertisement again.

Uh what um I keep is proposing would be digital, and what we currently have in uh place is uh only static um bus benches or uh trash receptacles.

Okay, all right.

So um with that being said, um it doesn't inspire the 2028, but can are we able to look into that to see how that would look after 2028 affecting the boys and girls club?

We we could so there are also a couple of other efforts that we might be uh pursuing in the in in the meanwhile, but good feedback and and absolutely we can do so.

There is typically some type of market level analysis that these companies would do that would uh be engaged in um uh business of outdoor advertisement and based on my personal experience, professional experience from the past, um, as long as there is a degree of separation uh between um uh the advertisement uh locations, uh the revenue generating opportunity wouldn't be uh affected very significantly.

Okay, all right, thank you, Milos.

And one other question.

Um, this question is in regards to um basically the life um span or um with this digital kiosk program with technology the way it is.

Um we're looking at um I see 10 years and again 20 years.

So looking at it 20 years down the road, will this digital kiosk um program still be um impactful?

Would it not be obsolete in 20 years?

And if so, what do we do with these 30 um kiosks that are there?

That that's a great qu if you don't mind, I I'm happy to address that.

That's a great question.

So the way that we think about it is if you think about your smartphone, what hasn't changed since you probably first got a smartphone to you know a very high degree is the shape and the size of your smartphone.

But what has changed significantly is the software, and your software is usually updated on your phone a couple of times a year.

Um you you know opt into that update, and that's what keeps it fresh and new features and new functionality.

We have an in-house software team that has built a proprietary software that we're pushing out multiple updates a month on that software.

And one example that I that we like to give is that um there's an arcade on our kiosk, and when we first launched the kiosk, the arcade only allowed you to play a game with yourself, and then the next generation of the software you could play against the person that stands on the other side of the kiosk since they're dual-sided.

Now we have the functionality where you can play, you could be standing in Fort Lauderdale and be playing someone in Houston, Texas.

So that type of of innovation is something that you would be expecting throughout the term, and that is why in our performance criteria we bake in that we have to push out those uh software updates and keep the content fresh and up to date, or else you have the ability to terminate because to your point, there's no point in having these in the public right of way if they're not serving the city.

And so I'm not sure if that answers your question, but we would be committed to to innovating the software and ensuring that it stays fresh and relevant for the city.

Okay, all right.

Thank you for that because I I have this vision of in 20 years everything will be um what's the word?

Uh I'm sorry, where it's just augmented reality.

Yes.

Well, I mean, if you guys want to augment in reality, maybe that's where that's the direction we'll go.

Okay, thank you for answering the question.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm I'm finished with my questions, then okay, great, thank you.

Um I have a couple people signed up to speak.

We'll start with uh we will start with Melinda and then um the other person, Joe Cox.

Is Joe still here?

He left.

Okay.

Hi.

Can you push the button?

Can you push the button?

Yeah.

I should know this by now.

It's been a long 2026 already, unfortunately.

Um Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, uh Melinda Balker, I'm president of the downtown Fort Larto Civic Association.

Um I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on remarks.

I just did want to come because um I only got the letter to you in support of this technology today, so I apologize for that.

Um I did actually get to meet in person um with Anna and um with her colleague Nick, and then I had them uh come to a board meeting.

Um and then subsequent to that board meeting after they presented to the downtown civic association, um, our board in December did vote um to support the use of this technology.

Um the main I think reasons just in summary, um, there's been a lot of the good points already highlighted.

So wayfinding obviously I think has been an issue in the downtown on the river walk um and other locations of the city.

I will say, as a Southsider, it's strangely enough.

I'm always having to explain to people on the South Side of the River Walk, they want to go to Las Oulas and they always want to go through the tunnel.

And I'm saying I say no, don't they?

They're pedestrians, so I say, no, you gotta go this way over the bridge.

Um so wayfinding is a big deal, I think still, um, and I and I don't think the phones are solving it.

Um I think safety is important.

Um we really liked the fact that there's a call button and that there's cameras, and those are options that I believe are free.

Um, and so we are actually interested in this potentially in a few areas of river walk.

Um and I think you know that's city property.

Um the other thing is the connectivity.

Um I'm not sure if this was emphasized.

Sorry, I gotta put up the glasses back on.

Um the kiosks offer um free public Wi-Fi within a hundred feet.

And given that the city is spinning money to bring broadband to our park system, the use of these kiosks in several city parks could be considered.

Um the other thing is the non-car public transit location and information sharing.

Um we were actually interested in the kiosk being at water trolley stops, uh, potentially um they could also have information connected to the lauder go system so that you can actually see where the water trolley is.

A lot of people don't know how to use the app on the phone, and I think that when they're waiting, they know okay, should I walk across the river or should I wait for the water trolley?

Um and then public art and promotion of uh Fort Lauderdale.

We saw that the kiosk um can promote local artists, um display city posters and events real time.

You can also have uh City of Fort Lauderdale branded selfies.

So in summary, we feel the city should strongly consider working with Ike Smart City to determine the best locations.

Um we're not sure the locations presented or the number and kind of that density is right.

Um, but we think that that's an ongoing conversation.

I think contract terms would need to be negotiated.

And we think that um the potential for a phased rollout is important.

We think additional locations could include river walk at the pedestrian bridge ramps that cross the New River in the historic district.

We think this would be a great way to connect Stranahan House, um the um History Fort Larry Complex and the Women's Club.

New River, yeah.

New River and then also just um the multitude of city downtown parks and near the main library.

And uh those are my comments.

All right, thank you so much.

I think all those places would be great.

Yeah.

Right.

Um, uh Anna.

Hi.

Yes.

Hi, Anna.

Um, so these kiosks, uh, you know, uh a walker can look into us.

Can we look at them?

In other words, are ring cameras attachable to these things so that they can they can help for crime prevention and safety?

They actually already have integrated cameras.

So there are if it they're optional from the perspective of some cities elect not to have them, uh, since some cities are very sensitive about that type of technology, but all of our South Florida cities have elected to have them.

There are two cameras, one at the top either side of the kiosk at the top, um, that are capturing the scene sort of on the sidewalk in either direction, and then there's a pinhole camera above the emergency call button on the spine of the kiosk.

So if someone presses it, the security camera is able to capture that footage as well.

Oh, good good to know.

Okay, very good.

All right, so what's the pleasure of the commission?

What would we what we would like?

What would we like to do?

Do we want to accept this and uh have staff look at it and uh make a decision as to how many days we are going to allow the um the period of uh of contest be open steps?

Competition period, I think.

Um so one um definitely there's I think there's some um you know good features to this possibility.

I I think uh I like the idea, and I don't think we have to um get to this granular level uh city manager, but the phasing of a rollout makes sense.

I would want uh flexibility in this number of units, like um uh uh because some parts of the city might, some districts, city commission districts might want more, some might want less.

So I think good flexibility in our contract terms for the number of units is important um as well.

And I would say entering into competition period mayor makes sense because that that's doesn't commit us to anything.

Right, right.

It's a competition period to get other if there are other providers that are interested in the in this um uh to provide.

Um I think the minimum is 21.

21.

So I'd say 21.

That sounds good too.

And that way we can get, you know, any other perspectives, thoughts, and then we can go from there.

Okay, very good.

Um have any other any comments from the commission.

Um concern, Mayor and Commission.

Um I'm uncomfortable with the we can, I guess it'll be in the negotiation discussion through city manager, but the 20-year um opportunity that 1020.

Um I just think it's uh uh uh a wide and a long um contract or an agreement with the way technology is changing so rapidly.

So if that could be a part of the conversation with whomever um comes to the table, um just concerned about just bringing forth some concern about that 20-year window.

Well, you're right, because you know they may have holograms by then and they'll be have real personal.

That was where I was looking for holograms, thank you.

Uh all right, so staff can look into that and see what the flexibility can be worked into these agreements in case we need to change out these these uh uh the the these um billboards with whatever new technology would come out by then.

It's a good point.

All right, so is that the consensus of the commission?

Okay.

So we will bring a resolution establishing the competition period for this qualifying project.

Okay.

All right, very good.

Uh now, business three, city manager.

You've asked me to continue this because we do have a closed door session, but there are people who have con come here to speak.

So how do you want me to handle this?

Well, I was advised uh uh that the attorney I'll leave it to the city attorney, but I think we have some scheduling issues with outside council.

All right.

So um uh let's see.

Steve.

I mean, we could take this up in tonight's meeting, which is in about I can take it up at the beginning.

Um at the beginning.

Would that be okay with you folks?

Okay, you have more billable hours, so it's uh yeah, if you don't mind.

Uh I don't want to I don't want to put it off to the next meeting.

I'd like to do it tonight.

Okay, very good.

All right, thank you.

All right, so um.

So at this time the city commission shall meet privately to conduct discussions between the city manager, the city attorney, and the city commission relative to pending litigation pursuant to section 286.001, parentheses eight, Florida statutes in connection with the following matters.

City of Fort Lauderdale versus F dot case number 4D 2025 2783, City of Fort Lauderdale versus F dot 25-004856 R U, and City of Fort Lauderdale versus F.

DOT uh 4D 2026 0271.

Isn't there another case?

It's just those three.

There's the other discussion the city manager has with you.

Okay.

City manager.

And there's a fair there's a collective bargaining meeting too?

Correct.

Okay.

I will come after.

All right.

So present at the attorney client session will be myself, Vice Mayor, Commissioner John Herbst, Commissioner Steven Glassman, Commissioner Pamela Beasley Pittman, Commissioner Ben Sorensen, City Manager Raquel Williams, City Manager Sherry McCartney, Deputy City Attorney Dwayne Spence, Assistant City Attorney Sean uh Almarnani, uh outside counsel uh Howard DuBosar, um outside uh council Jeremy Rosner, and of course, certified court reporter from Bailey Enton Court Reporting.

The estimated length of this time will be approximately 45 minutes total.

And so the executive closed door session will now begin.

Where are we where are we convening to?

The the room across the room.

Right across and hospitality is available if you'd like before.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

And we'll we'll resume our conference meeting uh at the beginning uh af after six o'clock.