Hey, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Commission conference meeting this May 5th, 2026.

Thank you all for being here today.

Um we have quite a bit to cover today and uh and today.

So it's really low.

It's really low volume.

Can you all hear me?

Okay.

Maybe I should just speak into the microphone.

Um anyway, we have a lot to cover this afternoon, a lot of presentations.

So uh uh why don't we just get started?

City Manager Well said, City Attorney, okay.

All right.

So um thank you.

Okay.

So let us begin.

Um so begin with the City Commission reports.

Uh Commissioner Mayor Trentalis, would you like to begin with the CRA agenda since it's noticed first?

That's just one item.

It's noticed first.

Um that is true.

All right.

Let us begin with that.

So we will suspend the conference meeting for the moment and we'll convene the uh CRA board meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Commissioner Herbst.

Present.

Commissioner Glassman.

Here.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Here.

Vice Chair Sorensen.

Here, Chair Trentals.

Here.

Um start with M1 motion approving the minutes for the March 19th, 2026 community redevelopment agency board meeting.

Someone would like to move that item.

Moved.

Second.

Move and seconded, please call the roll.

Commissioner Herbst.

Yes.

Commissioner Glassman?

Yes.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Yes.

Vice Chair Sorensen?

Yes.

Chair Trentals.

Yes.

And uh M1's now approved.

Moving on to R1.

This is a resolution approving the addition of the property safety enhancement program to the community redevelopment agency incentive programs authorizing funding for the program and delegating authority to the executive director to execute the related documents.

Does anyone have any questions with regard to R1?

Um, Mayor, I'm asking if we could have um CRA manager to come and just expound on this a little bit more for the neighbors would be fully aware of how it works.

Sure.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Vanessa Martin Acting CRA manager.

So the program was established.

We're very excited.

It's the for Central City and Northwest, where we're, you know, everyone can be eligible to receive up to $10,000 for property um enhancement, security enhancement features.

Um we're just asking whoever receives the award that they maintain the security enhancement features with their building over the the course of the time to be forgiven.

So give us an example of security enhancement features.

So we partnered with the police department, whereby they're going to go in and provide an assessment of what security enhancements may be needed.

So an example would be so tree hedging or cutting down for visibility to deter crime, or coming in and making sure we have motion detectors or lighting or or any of those features within the the in the building so that we can you know make sure that you know we can do deter the crime that comes within the CRA boundaries.

Okay.

You have any further questions, Commissioner?

Um, no other questions.

Thank you for expounding.

Okay.

Very good.

Mayor question on this go ahead.

Thanks.

Um one other question uh for you on this is and maybe for city manager as well, is um fire sprinklers.

So uh someone reach out to me interested in uh a project that would cost more than the 10,000.

So what might ask is is there could that could we increase that allowance uh for fire suppression or maybe the other components well right now the cap is at 10,000 dollars, um and we would probably have to revisit that at a later date.

But aren't we approving that now?

Yeah, so we can amend it because we are allocating additional funds for fiscal year 2027, but right now the cap is at 10,000, so there aren't any excess funds available for that feature.

Okay, so City Manager So there are various projects that could be eligible for funding under this program, and those are listed in exhibit two.

I'm sorry, exhibit five, page twelve of your backup.

I think that the fire safety systems, signage alarm, sprinkler systems, panic buttons, and such uh fall under the general category of security measures.

Right now the program is established, whereas in the focus area, an applicant could receive up to $10,000 and then within the broader boundaries of the CRE district, the applicant could receive a lesser amount of $7500.

Yes.

If the commission sought to uh promote a certain safety or security measure above another, I think that's certainly within the purview of the commission.

Uh I think that perhaps for those projects that are within the boundaries but not within the focus area.

Maybe if there is a fire suppression element as part of that project, then maybe they could go up to that $10,000 max as opposed to the $7500.

That might be one way to address it.

Right.

What what if it's a higher need than 10,000?

That's what I'm asking.

Could that be increased?

Well, the current budget allocation for the central city is 150,000.

And then for the NPF district, it's 130,000 for a combined total of 280,000 dollars.

So I think the intent was to uh implement a cap that would allow as much participation as possible.

But if the commission wanted to increase the cap, we would just uh get the consensus from the commission to do so, and I think that's something that could be implemented.

Okay.

Okay, it's fun.

Then I'll kind of come back with that.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Any questions?

Okay, there being none.

Um someone like to introduce the resolution.

Introduced.

Resolution's been introduced.

Please call the rule.

A resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency approving the property safety enhancement program for the Northwest Progressive Flagware Heights community redevelopment area and the Central City redevelop community redevelopment area delegating authority to the executive director to approve all awards and execute any and all agreements relating to such awards under the program providing for an effective date.

Commissioner Herbs?

Yes.

Commissioner Glassman?

Yes.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sorensen?

Yes.

Chair Trentals.

Yes.

And M1, excuse me, R1 is now approved.

Is there any further business of the CRA?

CRA Director?

None.

Okay.

All right.

Um that meeting is now concluded.

Now we'll return to the conference meeting and we'll begin with Commission Reports.

Commissioner Herbst.

Thank you, Mayor.

Do you have an announcement to make?

I do.

So we have a uh former resident of uh District 1.

Her name was Mary Cotton, and she was a resident of Coral Ridge Isles.

She was a welcoming ambassador, a friend and tireless advocate for the neighborhood.

Uh she was a an award-winning realtor since 1996, and she worked in Coral Ridge Isles and loved that community very deeply.

She's passed away, and the neighborhood has asked if we could name a street in her honor as a tribute to her contributions to the neighborhood and is a lasting legacy for her.

They're looking to do this on 60th Street, as Mary lived on that street for many years and spent a lot of time welcoming newcomers into the home into the neighborhoods, hosting neighborhood gatherings and helping to make the streets very festive around the holidays.

And so I'm just asking my commission uh would support this on behalf of Coral Ridge Isles and Mary Cotton.

Thank you.

So is isn't there isn't there a process that we follow to make that happen?

I think there's like a formal request to certain departments.

Who's in charge of that?

So as I understand there's two processes.

There's ones that can be initiated by the neighborhood, and there's another one that could be initiated by a district commissioner, and so that's why they've asked me if I would advance this.

If that's and I I see Ben Rogers and Milo Shmastorovich coming forward, but I think what we would need is consensus from the Commission to take one of those approaches.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Ben Rogers, assistant city manager.

Uh, you are correct uh uh Commissioner Herbst.

There is a policy in place that follows uh the protocol if for the neighborhood request and it requests from the body of the commission in the process followed and we can just move straight into the renaming process.

So we would be seeking city commission commission direction on that action.

So what segment of 60th Street would be named after her?

I guess is my first question.

So I guess that would be something that we would explore once we decide whether or not we wanted to move forward with this as a body, then we could explore the exact area and then and then sort of take it from there.

Is that typically how it's done?

That's correct.

If you want to turn it over to staff, we can reach out, we can get the boundaries, we can talk through, uh we get a narrative of the the background of the uh the person, the character that impacts the neighborhood, and then provide that to the commission um for further future consideration.

All right, sounds good.

Sounds good with me.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the support.

Sure.

Is that complete your report?

Yes, it does.

Okay, Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Um Mayor, could you come back to me?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Um Commissioner Glassman.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Um always busy in District 2.

Just a couple of highlights.

On April 22nd, I had the pleasure of joining um about 150 uh real estate agents from one Sotheby's.

It was a very fascinating discussion uh about the markets, particularly the luxury real estate market and the folks from around the world that seem to be finding their way to Fort Lauderdale.

Um and I want to just say thank you to them for the invitation to participate uh on that panel.

Um it was really quite an interesting evening.

Uh April 28th, um I had the absolute pleasure, Mayor.

I know that you were also there.

Uh we were at the uh Chabad Lasolas Jewish Center on Los Olis Boulevard.

Um paying tribute to folks that make the friendship circle happen for the um Chabad.

Uh for those of you that do not know the program that they do there.

This is all about uh assisting young adults with special needs, or as I like to say, uh unique abilities.

Um they actually operate a restaurant right next to George of the Chabad.

Um and they the school is incredible.

The students are incredible.

Um listening to these these young adults speak um at this thank you lunch to the businesses that uh make their school possible.

Uh it was very touching.

It was it was really uh a beautiful afternoon.

Um and those young people, the words that they spoke and uh how they told their stories about how never really feeling listened to or wanted or never a purpose.

Their parents talked about how they really just slept all day.

Now these these young adults actually spoke to uh a rather large crowd.

The synagogue was full, and and just talked about the joy that they feel now and the friends that they have and the purpose and all of the skills uh that they are actually learning.

Uh it was really a a really beautiful afternoon, so I wanted to say thank you to the rabbi and his wife and the entire uh group of folks that were there.

Many businesses were there uh that support this effort.

So congratulations and thank you to them for making this possible.

Uh April 29th, um I I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel.

Um this was the Realtors Association from Broward, Palm Beach, and Port St.

Lucy.

They're also about to join with Miami, uh, and they will be the largest association of its kind, I think, in the country.

Um we had an excellent discussion basically looking as how realtors can act as stewards of their community.

Uh we talked about uh primarily the role of historic preservation and neighborhood identity, uh, and also making sure that these realtors knew uh what that really meant, how local history and historic preservation can really affect uh the redevelopment, and also talked about that in terms of real estate values.

It was a very uh a very interesting discussion, excellent panel, and I wanted to thank the association, the Realtors Association for uh inviting me to be a part of that.

Um that night I also spoke uh at the Las Olas Isles Homeowners Association.

Um this is their annual meeting, and I must take a moment to thank the chief of police, uh uh also Chief Greenlaw and the entire team that they brought along.

There were a lot of concerns from all of these aisles about uh what's happening in terms of just security and public safety, and uh they had a lot of questions.

They've never had an opportunity to really just sit and chat uh with the chief and everyone else on that team.

So I really wanted to say thank you to our incredible police department who spent more than an hour um at this meeting kicking off their annual homeowners association meeting, uh fielding just uh an entire variety of questions uh and really giving the folks a comfort level.

Um I heard from many, many people on those those eight streets that make up that association about how really impressed they were uh and how really very, very satisfied and happy they were uh that the police actually spent as opposed to just giving the crime stats for the last month or two, actually getting into the weeds and talking to them uh for over an hour.

So thank you for that.

Um also that night uh we had the District 2 water building informational meeting with our neighbors at Holiday Park.

Um April 30th.

Uh, I wanted to thank staff for the excellent presentation that we had at the Beach Community Center.

We we looked at the Sunrise Lane Improvement Project, which is about 60 percent design now.

Um this was a project that really came from the ground up.

We had had so many charretts over the last couple of years, uh, talking about how we can really make that corner special.

For those of you that don't know, that's right by sunrise and A1A.

It really has a certain charm.

It's it's almost like the Greenwich Village, I think it's look um of the beach, of the beach area.

And we're gonna really make it so much nicer.

Uh the plans are great for the streetscape improvement.

Uh excellent feedback that night from the neighbors, and I'm hoping that staff took really good notes.

I know that we did, um, because we need to tweak the presentation just a little bit as we head towards 90 percent uh design.

Um May 2nd, um a lot of fun this past Saturday uh at Holiday Park.

As many of you know, we are building a brand new YMCA along with a Broward Health Facility right at the entrance to Holiday Park.

And the YMCA hosted a little builders' fun fest.

They even got a chance to you know paint their hands and do a steel beam a hand print, which will be used in the YMCA in the construction.

So I wanted to thank staff.

I wanted to thank the YMCA, Cheryl Woods, and also Broward Health for that.

It was really a great, great great activity, and the kids really had a good time.

Upcoming tomorrow, we have our annual uh fallen officers memorial ceremony right over here at Esplanade Park.

Always a very moving ceremony and so really very important.

Um May 7th, Thursday night, I will be speaking at the Chairman's Circle reception at the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

This is a very big networking event uh for not just the chamber but everyone involved in the swimming hall of fame uh will also see a uh the feature of the evening will be the signing of uh ISHOF's first athlete uh James Liechtenstein, who I believe is the top male diver in the United States.

Uh he will be present.

Uh there'll also be a dive show uh and that should be a really nice evening for the uh Greater Fort Lorel Chamber of Commerces Circle Reception.

Looking forward to that.

This weekend we know we have our air show on the beach, always a great event.

Uh I'm sure they'll start flying over probably Thursday and we'll see the rehearsals.

Um May 11th, um, as you know, we have several bridges that are getting uh rehabilitated over the intracal waterway, particularly Las Olas and Sunrise.

We've gone through all of the charettes uh for Las Olis.

Um and on May 11th, we will have a discussion of the Sunrise Bridge uh and what's going to happen there.

There'll be a five o'clock virtual meeting, and then uh uh just like we did with Las Olas, there'll be a six o'clock uh in-person meeting uh at ArtServe.

Uh Wednesday, May 13th.

Um we have the groundbreaking ceremony for the pantry lofts on 6th.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

It's been a while.

That's a great project, Affordable Housing Project.

Um, and we'll be having that um this coming uh when is that May 6th?

That's I'm sorry, May 13th, Wednesday, May 13th.

Um I would also like to add to the moment of silence this evening, if that's possible.

Um recently passed away, Joseph Amaturo, for those of you that attend the theater right here at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

There are two theaters across the street.

Uh one is the Amaturo Theater and uh one is the Aren't Theater.

Um Joseph Amateuro was an amazing person in Fort Lauderdale.

He just passed away at 102 years of age.

Uh a pioneer in radio and television, bless you.

Uh a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting.

Uh he built quite a fortune and yet he always gave back.

Uh he always said that wealth was a tool for service, uh, and he used that wealth with his foundation that was established in um 1986.

Uh it focused on a wide range uh of missions, uh, as particularly uh arts, elementary school literacy, uh, high school, university, Catholic education, uh, and also a focus on uh at-risk and homeless youth.

Uh he that foundation is still in existence, still still contributing to all of those causes.

Uh his wife, Winnie still survives him.

Um, and he actually, the amateuro theater across the way, uh, he had that named in honor of his parents.

Um, I just wanted to add his name uh for this evening.

He was really quite a citizen um in Fort Lauderdale.

Uh and my last thing is a comment.

I know I brought this up before.

I still continue to hear from Condominium Associations about this issue of the BDA systems uh and how they're finding this a really tough, tough road to navigate, uh, facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, not getting the answers that they want from all of the vendors that are out there, not feeling that people are being honest with them in terms of what they can do.

They believe they can just do these simple little booster programs on a floor or two in a building, not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new system.

A lot of misinformation out there.

So I'm going to again ask, where are we in making sure that we, and I believe it is our responsibility to make sure that our first responders can communicate with each other?

I still do not understand why this onus is being placed on all of these buildings, and they're all getting a wide, wide range of information.

I believe that we should be doing a better job with our cell towers.

We should be ensuring that our first responders can communicate whenever they need to communicate with whomever they need to communicate if they go into a building.

Are we making any progress to assist these many, many, many buildings that are facing a hardship with this?

At a time when they are already facing an incredible hardship with everything else that's coming on on top of them from the state with all of the mandates, uh, with all of the special assessments with the 40-year renewals of their buildings, uh, with all of the property insurance rises uh for the condominium buildings, uh, and really just the structural integrity reserve studies, all of these mandates on top of them from Tallahassee, and now we're saying to them, well, our our our first responders aren't really getting a good signal.

So do you mind spending two or three hundred thousand dollars to boost your signal in your building?

There's just something wrong here, and yet I'm not getting any updates on this at all.

And I've been asking about it for months and months and months.

And that's if you have any response to that.

Thank you, Commissioner.

While the chief is coming forward, I do want to share that we have recently concluded negotiations for the city's P25 radio system, and we will be bringing that to the Commission for consideration at the next meeting.

Chief Golan, would you come forward and share any information you may have?

Exactly what the city manager said.

Uh we're one meeting away.

Um, you know, I I think if you look at what has been accomplished over the last year since this problem has been brought to light, uh it's a multi uh focal uh response uh based upon uh IT being a part of the solution and then fire uh rescue having the enforcement side of it.

Uh the state laws have not changed in any way.

Uh they still require that radio communication to be in place.

Um and then also the county uh ordinances are in place as well that that are requiring this.

What we are seeing a lot is with uh um emergency life safety uh systems inspections that are taking place, we're starting to see more of these coming in.

Uh as they progress through the process, there there is a very detailed uh there's a very robust communication that helps them through it.

Um, from once they start to put the plan in all the way through, our fire prevention bureau and and also the IT department are there to help them through it.

Um just going over you know some of the last year, uh we've crafted handouts and disseminated them to the community, we've had webinars, uh the fire inspectors are providing communication in the field.

Um we've gone out and offered to do free inspections to to see what buildings are needed or not needed after the fire inspectors have been there.

Um we authored LTCs uh in getting us all the way to the point to where we're at now.

The final piece of this is the enhancements to our current radio system, which you should be seeing uh come next meeting.

No, and I appreciate that all of that, and I understand all of that, and I can't think of anything more important than that public safety, especially in these mid to high rises.

But still, I'm not getting the answer like what is being told, or how are the associations finding any financial relief in terms of what they're still being told they need to do, and then when they go out on their own and try and engage with these different vendors, they're just getting you know a plethora of solutions that it's very hard for them to understand.

And it's still everything you just said and everything you just said, City Manager, it's great, but it's not helping the bottom line of these uh condominium associations.

Uh it's just not.

It's because no one is giving them that piece.

No one is helping them with that piece.

And I'm still not understanding.

I've asked for this to be part of our legislative package, lobbying in Tallahassee.

I have never seen that.

Um I I don't know why.

I've I've spoken to our state reps, but we're just not getting any movement on this at all.

We should be coordinating with the county, we should be talking, staff should be working with the county uh and the state, and and really making sure that people understand these financial pressures that this is bringing upon all of these residents.

That's the missing piece.

Not everything that you just went through.

I love everything you went through, but it's not it's not the piece that matters to the folks that are saying we can't afford 200 300,000 in our building.

That's all.

Commissioner, when this was brought up recently, uh it was recommended that we include language in our legislative package to account for this issue, and we did take those steps.

Uh we also explored utilization of building fund revenue in order to offset costs for these buildings, and uh the opinion on that was that the city could not utilize that revenue source.

Uh on tonight's agenda, you will notice in the budget amendment, uh, there is an item related to the radio communications project, which we feel is the city's best opportunity to try to uh mitigate this issue.

Uh we don't know that it will be the end all be all, but we know that there should be some significant improvements.

So when all of the buildings they get inspected, what, once a year?

Yes, sir.

And then they get maybe up to a year to show some sort of progress on this whole BDA system.

The other part of that is a lot of them are at that 40-year life cycle where they're going through their ELSS.

And so that would also be a part of that inspection that's taking place.

Right.

So what are we doing to communicate?

Because I'm sure this is just not my district issue.

Uh what are we doing to communicate with all of these building associations and saying, hey, we're doing all of these things, and we're really hoping that this will help mitigate this issue.

We're really hoping that this will increase the signal capacity so that we are able to communicate uh from your building wherever you're having a problem before on floor two, floor three, and a stairwell, whatever.

Uh what are we doing to educate and also um give these folks a little help in knowing that we're working on it?

Because this to me is really a citywide issue.

It's not I mean, I know I have a lot of condominiums in my district, but it's citywide.

So city staff conducted an educational webinar on this matter a few months ago, and we could certainly have another round of that.

We could also produce uh collateral that we could share with these building associations.

You know, whatever avenue uh to educate, I think we're open to that, and we're hopeful that it is actually yielding results in terms of these building associations understanding their options and where the city stands.

Okay.

Well, I guess I'm gonna do that.

In addition, I'm sorry.

In addition to what the city manager had said, I would also like to encourage the community to call the fire marshal's office.

Uh that's what we're there for.

We're there to answer their questions, we're able to help them navigate it.

Uh we have a robust website.

Uh, just call us.

We're or they can send us emails, however they feel most comfortable communicating with the fire marshal's office, we're there for them.

See, also the missing piece in this, and we have never really discussed this in in at length, but when some of these vendors come in and explain to them what they'll do for that two or three hundred thousand dollars, it's always involving like structural work.

Like, because it's for some reason these systems they're not wireless.

It's like you you would think that technology today could fix this easily, both on our end and on their end, uh, but it's not that simple.

And these vendors are telling them, well, we have to go through the rebar and we have to wire here, and it that makes some of these buildings very nervous and very afraid that there's going to be this structural work done to to wire this system through floors to wire this system when they they don't even want all of that drilling, they don't want anything to happen, the integrity of the rebar or anything else structurally that that makes folks really uncomfortable when these vendors are telling them that's what we have to do to fix this system, to install this system.

We've got to do all of this wiring and it's complicated.

And I just don't think that we as a city are appreciating this kind of issue that's happening right now.

That's all.

So just walk me through the process, Chief.

Um so when we upgrade our comm system, and that's in place.

Do we then go out to condominiums to evaluate what impact that's having on comms throughout that building?

So during their annual fire inspection, or should we have an incident at that location?

Right.

If a if a radio failure is reported at that time, then we go back and we get the IT team in place and then start to look for a solution for that building.

What we're looking at is failures within the elevator shafts, emergency stairwells.

Uh Commissioner Glassman's a hundred percent right on on the systems and what's required of the systems.

But the the importance of these systems is that they have to be operational while the building is on fire.

So there are fire ratings on the wires, it's not just normal wires.

They have to be in conduit that the fire can't get through.

Uh there's fire stops when they're going through walls.

There's all kinds of things to take place to make sure that we're able to effectively communicate when the building is at the worst possible scenario it could be in.

Okay.

So that's needed if our comms system does not work.

Is that right?

Do you want to take the comms?

You said if the comm system doesn't work, so those things are to make sure that we those are the same.

Please introduce Ron McKenzie, Chief Information Officer, Director of IT.

And your question was if the comms don't work, those systems are in place to make sure that it does work.

It's a backup to make sure things are working or to make sure that things are clear.

So that way, like he was saying, in in those areas that are a little bit more volatile, stairways, elevators, et cetera, to make sure that the signal can get to them.

And that signal has to be there.

That's why it's wired in as opposed to anything in its worst conditions, it has to be able to connect and make sure that people are saying, okay, this is what's going on for the safety of not only the people in the building, but of our fire people who are actually helping them out.

Okay.

So if I heard you right, you're saying it's the wired system is a backup to the primary comm system.

And and I and I miss both the wired system is part of the system to make sure that it can go through.

That's what we're saying.

When those changes are done in the building is to make sure that the signal is there no matter what.

In its worst condition, the signal is there.

So do you need the wired infrastructure regardless of the wireless comms?

Only in those no.

It it in those places where the signal does not go.

Okay.

Because it's not able to be wireless, then you need wireless wired system to make sure that it happens.

Great.

So will we not know if wireless comms work until we've upgraded to the wireless comms system?

You want to take that?

Neither you're saying will it be improved?

I think that's what you're saying.

Once we do it, once it's improved, what will happen is the signal will be stronger going into the building.

Right?

So for the most part of the whole city of Fort Lauderdale, it will be stronger.

The makeup of that particular building building may stop the signal from um uh transversing through the building to see what's going on, and you won't know that until that happens.

Great.

So in other words, condos don't know if our upgraded system will improve comms in their building or not.

They just we won't know until we install it.

Is that right?

Correct.

Okay.

So it may significantly improve comms in many buildings.

Correct.

It may have very little impact in some buildings, right?

Correct.

So should buildings then, I don't know if they're even by law and so forth allowed to, but it would seem to make sense before they invest significantly, Commissioner Glassman.

Before they invest significantly to see if this upgrade actually improves comms, because if it does to the level that you're comfortable with, then they would not need the wired infrastructure.

Is that right?

And that will happen at the inspection, the annual inspection, correct?

But we we can't put we would know at that after the inspection, after all the system has been put in, what exactly that looks like.

There are so many variables that play into this from weather.

Uh but we also are not afforded the opportunity to pause the state statute and not enforce it.

Uh we have to continue with enforcement, and the individuals need to continue with the progress forward.

Uh to date, we have not fined anybody for not having operational radio systems in their building.

Although it does put police and firefighters at risk every single day that it's not operational.

Okay.

What we ask from the community is that they begin to work towards a solution, whatever that may possibly be.

And most of that is just communicating with our office that they're working towards a solution, that they're uh have identified and acknowledged that there is a problem, and that from both directions from a city standpoint of view, we're hopeful to move this project forward in the next meeting.

And then also from their standpoint of view that they're also working towards a solution.

Okay.

And then best case, if we move forward with this new system, when would that be fully integrated in place?

I'm gonna let you I'm gonna bring up James Baker for that for when the system will fully be uh um installed.

Commissioners.

Communications manager, City of Port Lauderdale.

Uh your question, Commissioner, I apologize.

If we move forward with this new comm system, when would it be fully instituted?

So presently the uh the vendor is committed to us a 18-month timeline, um, assuming that there is no civil impacts.

Okay.

So that's a year and a half from now, assuming that everything moves quickly.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So then in that interim, when it's instituted, some condos may be in great shape once it's instituted.

Right?

Could be a good idea.

We don't know.

Correct.

We don't know.

Some will be, some may not be.

So in that interim, if I'm understanding you right, they should continue exploring options as condos with what to do and how to meet the state statute.

And they can also say to themselves, in 18 months, hopefully this system is instituted and we won't need to hardwire anything.

Is that right?

There is a likelihood, yes, sir.

Okay.

So is it uh just from a policy standpoint and public safety standpoint?

Is it okay for condos continue to dialogue and update you during these next 18 months without making the investment that they may not need to make ultimately?

That's what you would say.

So once again, the the challenge there is that there is a Florida State statute, and we're required to enforce that Florida State statute.

What we would ask them to do is to be in contact with our office so we can help them navigate the process in a timely fashion.

Uh like I this has been years of some of these buildings that have not been in compliance.

And our our goal is not to create more financial hardship on them by finding them.

Our goal is to help them navigate a solution, whatever that solution may look like.

Okay.

Great.

So I think there is a solution there of continuing to communicate with you, us moving ahead with the news calm system as fast as possible.

And hopefully that's instituted and uh addresses all of these challenges.

Right?

I mean that's a hope.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Well, there's also, and by the way, I certainly understand the importance of this, and and yet I also understand the enforcement piece.

Because we know that we always enforce everything in Fort Lauderdale.

Uh enforcement is always right.

What?

Nothing going on.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Um, you didn't take me seriously?

Yes, I'm just gonna be.

Oh, okay.

I'm so sorry.

Here's the rub, and I know of a building that went through this.

You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on one of these systems, and then if a building goes up near you and it's new construction, or if you change your own windows to impact glass, all of a sudden, guess what?

The next year you fail.

And people are being told that buildings that have never had an issue for 20 years, 25 years, all of a sudden they are having issues, and they're being told it's because of the increase in development.

It's because of the increased downtown density that's blocking our signals.

It's because of the fact that you changed from just regular old 50-year-old windows and now you have hurricane glass.

That's a big investment for a condominium association, thinking they were doing the right thing to make their buildings harder and being more more resistant to storms, and yet the catch 22 is now you're being told that you have a problem with the BDA system.

But again, there's too many moving parts.

We we still have to work harder to get our signal right.

I still believe that this is our problem as a city, not these buildings' problems.

These buildings all passed muster when they were built.

They all got COs.

They all signed off that they met every single responsibility that they had to meet, including a BDA system.

Including a BDA system.

But now they're being told because our city is growing, guess what?

It's not good anymore.

And you might do this, but guess what?

If a building goes up near you or blocks another one of our towers, next year you're going to fail.

It's just too haphazard.

It's too random, it's too willy-nilly.

We have to do better.

I'm not going to beat this to death, but uh it's frustrating because I still hear it, and I've been bringing this up for the last year, and I'm just not seeing the necessary progress.

That's all.

That's all I'm going to say about it.

Thanks.

Is there a way, City Manager, is there a way to expedite the 18-month integration of the system?

We will do everything we can to expedite, I think that 18-month period uh was already looking at advancing it as fast as possible, but we can evaluate that.

Thank you.

So I have a question.

Eighteen months is up.

New technology.

Now we're functionally obsolete.

When does this end?

When does the process end?

You know, I can't believe another a new building built next door to an older building is going to frustrate the efforts that have been invested in by that first building.

What system is going to be fail-safe so that we can continue to invest and make sure that our community is safe?

Is there is there an answer to that question?

I don't think so, Mayor, because technology is going to change, just to be honest, right?

And so therefore there may be this system is going to be the best system that we have at the time.

That's exactly what it is.

They've been negotiating to try to make sure that we've got everything situated.

We have got newer radios with LTE, we've got various different things to make sure it's current right now, and it's going to be the best that we have.

But five years from now, we don't know what the situation is going to be.

But I think it's going to be solid for a while.

So while the state mandates the investment by these individual buildings, um, the state doesn't take into consideration the possibility that that investment is could be obsolete in five years or three years or what it may be.

In other words, as technology, especially Bluetooth technologies continue to advance, it would seem to me that there's got to be some you know some way to protect those that have made the initial investment from not being frustrated by new technologies or other impacts on their building that are going to interfere with their ability to get radio responses.

I think they take it out in consideration, and even as technology comes to try to make sure things happen, we try to make things backward compatible to make sure that things are straight.

But as we say, construction, there's various different things that come into play that are not considered.

And so therefore, if physical things happen, because that's the problem, it's a physical thing.

It comes to the building, but it can't go through.

So physical things may change that, and that's not something that you know we can predict.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

Uh Commissioner Glassman, does that conclude your comments?

It certainly does.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Busy couple weeks.

Um, was uh happy to participate in Fort Lauderdale Cares Day, helping neighborhoods clean up, make a difference.

So thank you to all the neighborhood leaders out there, really make made this possible, and thank you to city staff for being a great part of that.

We had some great activities in uh in District 4.

Had the honor of speaking to the Urban Leadership Institute class about resiliency and what our city is doing.

That was fantastic.

One of our own urban planners, Tyler Laform uh is part of that class, and Angela Salmon, who is a capstone mentor, so it's great having our city team members part of that.

Also attended the Broward Health Medical Center groundbreaking to uh build more office space and um doctors' offices, which is gonna be just fantastic to better serve patients in in the city, which is excellent news.

Um I like to say we're city of champions.

We've got the champion uh Panthers that practice here in the city of Fort Lauderdale, two time Stanley Cup winners were we got the inner Miami uh MLS Cup champions and uh went to the TR TYR Pro Swim Meet at the um aquatic center and saw more records broken uh here in Fort Lauderdale.

So it's just it's exciting time.

It was awesome to see uh Olympian Katie Legdecie uh crushing it in the in the pool, and she says Fort Lauderdale is her favorite pool in the world.

So the fastest pool is right, it's the fastest pool, she says.

Uh so those are comes from a knowledgeable source.

Well, this is a woman that I saw the 800 meter freestyle.

Oh, did you good?

Yeah, and uh, you know, at the end of the race, she's at least one pool length, right?

So it's always a race for second in her competition.

It's amazing.

She's just an amazing swimmer.

It's stunning.

And you know, and it all happens here in Fort Lauderdale, which uh I think we should all be be proud of.

Um happy to uh be part of our city's effort of eat and shop local Fort Lauderdale.

We're supporting small businesses, so just encourage everyone, please support your small businesses here in the city, doing such great work.

Um had a chance to uh go out with my daughter and and be part of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which is a great nonprofit.

They basically identify um residents in Fort Lauderdale who don't have beds for their children.

And just think about that.

You know, many people in our city do not have a bed to sleep in, sleep on the ground, on a sofa.

Um so what this nonprofit does is they go in, they bring bunk beds or single beds, and within 10 minutes, build a bed, put the mattress, the bedding that the child chose, put it on there, and um and and leave the child and the family in just this amazing, amazing uh place afterwards, and it's uh it was just very moving to see um what impact that has.

So I just uh thank that organization, the great work they do in our city.

Um had a chance to go to the Tarpman River Civic Association and see their uh association party in the park, which was great.

Then another uh great part of Fort Lyra, Fort Larry United, which is our women's professional soccer team in Fort Lauderdale.

They play uh out at NSU's campus.

Uh so we got a chance to go to their game.

Um we're developing as a city a new partnership with them.

So it was City of Fort Lauderdale staff members night there on Saturday night, which was fantastic.

Um then celebrated uh Harold Sotsky's 104th birthday, uh Harold Sotsky, 104 years old, World War II veteran, uh Coast Guard, uh amazing, amazing individual, and so a special uh being there, and that was honor flight and mission united who helped make that possible.

So thank you for everyone.

Chief of police was there, gave Harold a patch, and it was very special, special time for our greatest generation who who set our country uh up for where we are today.

So just want to want to thank them.

Um happy early Mother's Day to all the mothers or mother figures out there uh coming up.

So thank you for who you are and what you do.

Um very grateful for all of you.

Um additionally, we have I see uh Broward County Commissioner Beam Fur is here.

Uh hello, Commissioner, thanks for being here.

Appreciate you being here.

Um just question City Manager.

Uh if you could you give us an update on City Hall, what what kind of are the next steps for City Hall or what are you working on?

Thank you.

As directed at the last commission meeting, uh we are exploring the feasibility of existing properties, uh, more specifically the Tower 101 building, the one East Broward building, and the courthouse building.

Uh while we are doing that exploration with Jacobs, our owners representative, we are also uh continuing to have conversations with the developer.

Um based on the feedback provided at that commission meeting, uh we are working to see if there is a refined project approach for a new build that could also be evaluated by the commission in addition to those existing properties.

Uh so we do have quite a bit of work to do to come back to the commission on June 2nd.

I plan to issue a letter to the commission, likely tomorrow once we have more details from Jacobs.

It could be that we have uh a preliminary update on June 2nd and a more substantial update on July 2nd, based on all of the deliverables that will be needed to fully evaluate all the opportunities.

Okay.

Great.

So from here and you're right, Tower 101, 1 East Broward, and Federal Courthouse, we're exploring those as well as continue to work with the developer for for that option as well.

Are we talking to GSA about the federal courthouse possible usage?

We are having those conversations with GSA, and they have been very open to allowing the city to have access in order to do those evaluations through consultants.

Okay, great.

And is uh a government function in there as the you know commission or administrative, is that one of the options?

They haven't said so definitively, but based on their openness to having us explore the property, we feel that they are open to it.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

So it sounds like that analysis of with the developer, Tower 101, East Broward, Federal Courthouse might have some initial findings June 2nd, but might need more time till July 2nd, saying.

I think that we can come to the commission in on July 2nd with a lot more material, but I think in order to honor the commission's request of having some information on June 2nd, we can certainly do that as well.

Well, the thing is, you know, if if June 2nd doesn't provide uh the engineer enough time, we don't want just uh you know haphazard response because this you know when you when you try to take over an existing building, uh there are many things that have to be examined that just can't be looked at in a cursory way.

So maybe we have to wait till July in order to be able to have a more um a more realistic understanding of uh of what the of what these buildings are are gonna uh require in order to adapt to a new city hall.

And if that is the case based on information that is pending, I intend to make that clear to the commission via letter to the commission, which will likely go out to you tomorrow.

Okay.

May I just ask a question about that?

We deferred M3 to June 2nd, right?

We that was the motion that was passed that we deferred it to June 2nd.

Correct.

So we would have to deal with that that we actually have.

We'll address it on June 2nd, but also and so from there we'll know whether or not it makes sense to continue to examine going, you know, examine to uh get a more um uh in-depth uh understanding of what the adaptation process would consist of.

Who's making the decision of how deep we're going on those evaluations on the three buildings?

I mean Well, we are.

No, that's not my question.

My question is I'm hearing now that we think we might have to go till July 2nd.

So my question is what is the scope of these investigations?

I mean, you could I mean you look at that federal courthouse, you look at, you know, I'm just picking that one of the three.

Um, you know, we we could you could be bogged down in investigations and details for quite a while depending on your scope of how far you want to go.

So I'm just trying to figure out what we were expecting on June 2nd versus are we kicking it down to July, and then in July we say, oh, we don't have enough information, we should get deeper, and then we're kicking it to August, and then we're kicking it to whenever.

Well, uh in terms of the federal courthouse, for example, they've already done an investigation.

So we could certainly draw from their conclusions.

I believe they took almost a year to do an analysis as to whether or not that building could be rehabilitated in order to remain in there.

So as far as and they made the decision that it that they couldn't remain in there for whatever reason, uh maybe the size, maybe the the the uh the um the uh structure structural viability of the building, we don't know, but certainly uh I know Quentin can follow up and and get that information from the from the GSA to find out what their conclusions were when they did their own self-analysis of the uh the federal building, and at least we know that.

As far as the other buildings are concerned, 101 and 1 East Broward, um I I push I mean, why don't we just wait and see what the what the consultants is going to say to us and what um what recommendations they may have as to whether or not they need to go further and farther and deeper in order to be able to do a complete analysis.

And then um just a question, because you had mentioned Mayor at the last meeting when we deferred that item um that you had thought that those buildings were already looked at and investigated and researched from the county.

We found out that that wasn't the case.

That was not the case.

Correct.

We connected with Broward County and they identified that at that time they did not investigate these buildings because the property owners were not interested in selling to the county.

So there is no backup documentation from the county that speaks to those existing buildings and what was um evaluated.

Thank you.

Would it be possible for us to see what exactly you charge?

Is Jacobs leading this uh investigation for us on the case?

Yes, Jacobs is our owner's rep, yes.

Okay.

So may I eventually see what exactly was told to them in terms of what is their scope in these investigations?

I'd like to just see what their charges and you know just how how deep they're actually going.

So Quentin Pugh, assistant city manager can give some information on what that scope entails, but we're still finalizing that.

So I don't know that we have the fee finalized at this time, but I think Quentin can speak to the intended scope, which is crafted to address the questions and requests from the commission.

Thank you, manager.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Quentin Pew Assistant City Manager.

So that's the manager just stated, Jacobs management management is being um consulted to uh spearhead this uh assessment.

What we're looking at or the scope that was provided to Jacobs in a nutshell is to do a uh a high level property condition assessment, structural analyses, uh look at MEP mechanical, electrical, plumbing, uh spatial uh assessment.

We also asked them to provide us with a cost estimate for any renovations.

Um one of these particular buildings may have an opportunity um to incorporate a chamber, so at a very high level, provide us with that estimate.

Um we asked them to look at the cost per square footage of other recently developed city hall at the last commission meeting or when we were discussing the city hall, um there was numbers thrown around regarding 500, 600.

We were using a 1200 cost per square footage, so we asked Jacobs to do uh high-level assessment on recent um city hall improvements, uh city of Miami, one in Pompano, et cetera.

So um the goal here is just to perform a very high-level report summary, uh bring that forth as soon as possible.

Um Jacobs has told us that they're anticipating at least six to eight weeks that they would need to produce such report.

Um that high-level report, once it comes before you, the goal would be if further analysis is needed, then um where we need more detail or technical information beyond uh what's been provided, you would pick one of those buildings, and then we'll bring that forth in the following 45 to 60 days after that.

But we want to provide you with enough information where you can actually deliberate and um let us know whether you want to proceed or not proceed.

Six to eight weeks, Quentin, does not bring us to Jane to June 2nd.

I mean, we we're already four weeks away from there.

So we would need to wait until July, then is what you're saying, in order to in order to give them the time that they need to do something that's uh more uh realistic, correct?

That is correct.

As the manager stated, we're we're fine-tuning some things.

We may want to cut some of those some items out of that particular woke scope or work scope that was provided to them in order to achieve that June 2nd deadline.

Well, but everything you said is what we want to hear.

Every all those all those all those uh analyses and uh and every one of those elements we need to hear.

Because every one of them is significant and will have a cost associated with them if we're looking to rehabilitate and adapt.

Not just rehabilitate, but adapt, adapt our needs, our uses to an existing structure that wasn't intended to have those uses.

So you know, let's be fair to the process and give it the time it needs.

Mayor, some of the work scope could be produced and provided to the commission by the June date.

Uh but what Quentin is saying is that the full breadth of the scope as contemplated would take more time.

So they haven't even started yet.

They have started some work on this.

I thought you said we haven't we haven't completed the scope of work assignment.

So how how did we get them started when we haven't even submitted it to them?

We have we have been refining the work scope.

However, um Jacob's management has contacted building owners.

Um the city has uh provided them when um contact information for the GSA representative scheduling.

Oh, for GSA for for the other buildings.

For all three, we have they have received um the properties owners' information.

Jacos management has made contact with those um owners, also has started scheduling some of those um site visits.

So work has been done.

Have we issued a notice to proceed?

No.

Have we started talking about cost and things like that in a word scope?

Absolutely.

But things are ongoing and is moving along.

So are we paying them for the work that they're doing now?

Everything has been at a very sort of discussion level.

They haven't visited any particular building as of today, they just had phone conversations.

So all the we've done all of this just to get where we are today in order to provide you with this information.

All right, great.

Go ahead.

Thank thanks, Mayor.

Um thanks, Quentin.

Could I just ask Quentin one?

You have questions for Quinn?

Well, no, I'm gonna keep talking, but you can go ahead.

No, but for Quentin?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

No, we'll go ahead and I thought you had other items on your own.

Oh no, well we'll stay on this.

Um, City Manager and Quinn, I think if I heard you right in terms of the optionality for a chamber.

So I think what we'd want to do, city manager is make sure we're we're comparing apples to apples here.

So we'd want an evaluation of the cost of a chamber in 101, the cost of a chamber in one East Broward, and the cost of the renovation for the federal courthouse having a chamber there.

I just want to make sure we're that way we can evaluate build option, buy option, and and across the similarities, if that makes sense.

So I I think part of the evaluation is looking at the renovation cost estimate based on price per square footage, and the chamber would be included in that estimate.

And I do also want to share uh Mayor, we have already ordered appraisals for all of these properties, and those appraisals should be delivered to the city in advance of that June 2nd meeting.

So there is work being done, and although Jacobs hasn't received the task order, there are certain aspects of the project that no matter what the task order says, Jacobs will need to do those preliminary steps.

So we already anticipate that those will be some baseline expectations.

Thanks.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Oh, thank you.

Uh Quentin, has Jacobs been provided with the uh the ULI report and the infrastructure task force report on what the public wanted in City Hall?

Not to my knowledge.

Um what they have been provided is reports from the current um Tower 101 and the One East Brower, any available reports from those particular facilities.

Um we are we have requested a report from GSA as far as any due diligence or analyses that they have.

Um and that's what's been sent over to Jacobs as of today.

I I think what the commissioner is asking though is when Jacobs does their analysis to to see how we can adapt the buildings to the needs of our of our that have been expected of our community, they need to have that list to see whether or not that those uh those requirements that the community has come up with can be put into those buildings and and at what cost.

That's what the commission is asking.

Yes, and not only in those buildings, but around those buildings.

There was a lot of discussion on both of those reports about the civic engagement, the civic plaza, things like that.

So I I just think it's really important that they be given those two reports, the ULI um and the infrastructure task force.

I also believe that the ULI has done a report.

You might want to contact them about the federal courthouse.

Um it wasn't not a good report, but you might want to just ask them um if they actually looked at the federal courthouse as well.

Absolutely will do, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Commissioner Glassman, just to add to that, uh we have established a work program based on all the work we've done with the developer on the potential new build city hall.

And so if we are looking to have an apples to apples comparison or something that is comparable, we would want to take that work program or that space program that has already been developed based on some of the merits of the infrastructure task force and what the community has said.

But we have since evolved from that moment and we have what does that mean evolve from that moment?

So the things that the infrastructure task force uh weighed in on or opined on, uh, we summarized and we shared that with the development community before we went out to the competition period for the city hall.

The developers came in and based on that information, they proposed a program.

We have since refined that space program with the developer on the proposed new city hall.

So we've identified how much square footage we'd like to have, what types of spaces, and so if the request from the commission is to compare the opportunity for existing buildings to become the new city hall, then I think that we need to compare the space program that we have been working on under the new bill project uh with the existing buildings.

So that we can have without compromising the expectations that the infrastructure task force had put forth.

When you s when you say evolve, it sounds to me like, well, we're gonna get rid of this and get rid of that, and we'll just come down and accept these two or three things.

That's not what we're looking for.

I think the goal of any alternative for City Hall will be based on meeting the needs of the community based on the infrastructure task force feedback that was done at that time.

In their report.

Yes, yes.

And so we want to make sure that in comparing apples to apples, that the new construction project that was that was offered, which contains all of those elements that the infrastructure task force had proposed can also be incorporated in in any existing building.

And if they can and at what cost, that's all we're saying.

We can do a side-by-side checklist of what the infrastructure task force uh requested, and then we can for all the alternatives check whether or not the project meets that criteria.

Exactly.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Quentin.

Great.

Um thank you, Quinn.

Appreciate it.

Um I think the analysis of the Federal Courthouse makes a lot of sense too, because we've talked about many uses for the federal courthouse.

We've talked about a museum, a school, city commission chamber.

So that'll help all of that for us to kind of analyze what that could be useful for.

And then one other question is as we've we're talking about public engagement in the ITF.

Mayor, we talk if our memory serves me right, we talked about um budget advisory board being able to analyze these findings, and I think Council of Four Laurel Civic Association, right, looking at those as well.

So I just want to think about sequencing when would they get a chance to kind of evaluate this?

Well, I think we should get the chance first to see what's going on here and then and then make a determination and then get feedback from those, you know.

We make a decision and then the budget advisory board can come back and say, okay, this is this is you can't afford it, you can't afford it.

This makes sense, this doesn't make sense.

Um, but I think we should at least I mean they're welcome to see the results at the same time we're seeing the results, but I think that we need to before before it gets put out to the community to make any further discussion.

I think the commission needs to to see what we're dealing with and uh what the what how realistic or unrealistic some of these expectations are.

So um, but it sounds to me like we're not gonna see much until July anyway.

So um so I mean it's it's an interesting process, and I think we need to go through it and uh and we'll just see.

But I just don't want to compromise um the expectations that the community has proffered uh when we're dealing with city hall, that's going to be our city hall for the next two, three, four generations.

Right.

So yeah, agree.

And I I wanna and for me it's helpful to have the budget advisory board and the council for Laura Civic Associations lease, Marie, give me their feedback so that I can.

So okay, great.

I think we're all on the same on the same page.

Um City Manager, one other question.

The I think we had talked about you developing a budget for City Hall.

In other words, I think we we said we we um don't want to dip into the reserves, right?

The all these multiple guardrails.

So is that part of what you're working on as well?

Yes, that was part of the direction from the commission, and that information could be available on June 2nd or July 2nd.

We're already actively working on that based on the parameters provided by the commission.

Okay, great.

Um fantastic.

That all sounds very good.

Um last topic on related, unless there's anything else on City Hall.

Okay.

Just one comment.

Um we keep saying June 2nd or July 2nd.

There is a meeting on June 16th, right?

I always get nervous when we schedule things on the last meeting before the summer break, because you never know what happens.

I'm thinking that if we are really seriously thinking that we're going to need more time on studying these buildings, that it needs to be done by June 16th, not July 2nd, because as I said, we go on break till almost the end of August.

So I would encourage us to figure out what we need to figure out.

If we can't do it June 2nd, can we do it by June 16th and figure it out?

I know that the mayor intended to be absent on June 16th, and so that's why we were pushing for uh June 2nd.

And if there's any follow-up.

I'm not going to be here.

July 2nd.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, one other unrelated uh just want to congratulate Brad Cain, Public Works Director.

He was appointed to Service Chair of the South Florida branch of the American Public Works Association, Florida chapter.

So congratulations, Brad.

Thank you.

And uh just thank you for your and your team's quick response when we have infrastructure needs uh in in the city.

I just appreciate your timely response and and helping the neighbors.

So thank you, Mayor.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman, are you ready?

Yes, I am.

Thank you, thank you.

Um thank you for the opportunity to share um my colleague um Steve Glassman likes to say busy, I like to say productive, busy makes me spaz.

So I've been a little productive here.

Um had the opportunity on Thursday, April 23rd, to attend the uh memorial for the Korean veteran Corporal Joshua Corumph.

And he was actually missing in action, and his um remains were identified, and he was able to be brought home.

And it was an honor to be able to attend the memorial service that was held at Boyd Funeral Home in the city of Fort Lauderdale to be able to um speak of his accomplishments and how he's fought for our country.

Um, being a young man, he was actually 20 years old when he went missing, and he was identified as um presume um dead in December of um 1956.

So we were given that opportunity to be able to be with the family and um again just being able to acknowledge his sacrifice for this country and for all of us who are experiencing democracy at this time.

Also, I was able to attend on Monday, April 27th, a rotary connection ride along, which was a great opportunity.

The Rotary Connection is a free bus that um that helps our unhomed, unhoused citizens or residents of our city um to get to appointments regarding um anything from the driver's license bureau um to get ID replaced, Social Security to get um paperwork taken care with them.

Um there's 61 actual stops on the loop that they do uh Monday through Friday on this um opportunity, this bus ride that's given.

Um I was really impressed with um the individuals that were on the route with me, they were going to take care of their business, and then also I had conversations um with the driver, with also uh Mr.

Smith, and we talked a lot about the opportunity that the Rotary Club has for reunification, and with their track record right now, they're averaging um or two regen re umifications rather with those individuals to return them home to other counties, other cities, um, other states where loved ones are waiting for them.

And what I wanted to um ask as far as us from the commission, we know that we have our homeless um committee, that board.

I want to see if there's an opportunity that we can also collaborate to see how we could work together to be able to increase that number for um reunification for those individuals who are desiring to turn to return home.

Um, because if there is if on the route that they're going, if they're daily becoming coming against one individual that wants to return home, are there other um opportunities within the city that we may not be capitalizing on?

So is there a city manager?

Certainly I think there are opportunities and I know that's um a subject that we've been discussing lately through our budget process how to augment services and how the city can be a participant.

So I'm going to ask Portia Garcia our community services director to come forward.

Thank you, Manager Williams.

Good afternoon, Mayor Commissioners two things one there are funds in the police department's budget for reunifications that's the first thing.

The second thing is that staff from community services department met with Rotary Connection and fellowship on yesterday to discuss the partnership.

We are looking for an agreement to come before the city commission in June or July to formalize that partnership.

We also are are in the process of meeting with the landlord for our community court space to see if we'll have their permission which is a requirement of our lease for that for that space to bring rotary connection services to the community court building during non-community court days.

Okay thank you that's that's Commissioner can I just ask a question while we have uh Portia up here.

So um so recently I was sent um pictures of a feeding program that's taking place right next to the uh county library with uh with tents and all kinds of of temporary but but visible structures where I guess an organization had uh sought the permission of the city to do a feeding program there.

Um I thought we don't allow that anymore.

Why what is going on there?

So through community services department there is a permit required for any type of feeding the feedings that are issued a permit are shared with our police department so that we know where they are and the dates as well as any type of setup of tables or parking whenever there is a feeding occurring without that permit we partner with the homeless outreach team to do enforcement and have that feeding stop.

I understand that I'm I'm more concerned about the fact that we even give permits because it was my understanding that a number of years ago we passed an ordinance saying there could be no more outdoor public feedings and it all had to be done within a structure and undertaken by the owner of that particular structure now we're going back to where we were years ago where we specifically said we don't do not because now it creates I mean just because the the nonprofit leaves and packs up all their tents and their and their cooking equipment and all that the mess is there.

We see we and and not just the mess that they leave behind but also the image that we that this has become another central feeding area for homeless people that continue to congregate in an area that we tried to clean up years ago this is this is back to the future here.

What is going on here?

So mayor what I'm familiar with is that the per the feedings are permitted however a city permit is required I can research and look into if that should not be the case but to my knowledge there is an ordinance that does allow the feedings as long as they have a city issue permit.

Alright I wish you could research that Chris did you want to add to that?

Yes Mayor Commission Chris Cooper Deputy City Manager so there is a ordinance on the books right now for outdoor social service events that includes food distribution and a variety of other types of events the reason that we have that is because it was opined that we could not treat different events um differently and we couldn't restrict people's ability under the First Amendment to carry out certain activities.

So there's not a limitation about how and where somebody can have these events as long as they come in and obtain the permit that we offer and they you know they can't create a situation that's either dangerous or hazardous for the participants, the providers or the general public so we do have some ability to address certain aspects of those events when they come in for a permit to make sure that they're not causing any issues for themselves or others but we have limitations on being able to outright deny the ability to do it.

We are taking a look at those along with the city attorney's office to try to create more of um more of a reasonable program so we can have a little bit more control over you know some of the aspects of those types of events but you know the expectation that we wouldn't be able to that we we'd be able to prohibit those events is probably not the case.

Right and I and I suspect that would because of the food not bombs lawsuit.

Right I understand that.

And first of all, they're they're taking up the whole sidewalk, so that it obstructs the sidewalk.

Um the county, I don't know when the county is going to ever rehabilitate the plaza in front of the library, but we're still waiting, Commissioner.

And uh uh and we we want to, you know, this is this continues to be ground zero for homelessness.

Yes, so when are we gonna get when are we going to learn that we've got to find legal humane but realistic ways in which to rehabilitate our city streets so that they're not inundated with this kind of activity?

Yeah, I agree.

And you know, from experience we're finding that the events that are permitted because we know they're going on because we are in more communication with the folks that are coordinating those events, we have a better outcome in terms of the aftermath of those events.

Um a lot of the ones that you're seeing and that were in the photographs that you received, you know, were not a permitted event, and so those are the ones that we see that kind of come and go and they they leave evidence of their being there, trash and other things.

So part of what we're trying to do is one be more upfront about making sure people are aware of our process and our permits so that we can go through these things the right way, but also as uh Portia Garcia mentioned, coordinating between our CSD staff and our police department staff to make sure that there's a broad awareness of what is permitted and what's not so that we can take appropriate action when things aren't permitted properly.

Okay, well, thank you.

Um Portia, if you could come back, please.

I um to finish the conversation about the opportunity for reunification with those um unhoused um individuals that are in our community.

Could you expound a little bit if you would on um the meeting that occurred on yesterday and what the um objective is to um make this be a productive opportunity for us as a city?

Absolutely.

So what we discussed on yesterday, Commissioner, is rotary connection.

A majority of their operation is in the city of Fort Lauderdale.

They do have stops that are in plantation as well as Oakland Park along their route.

However, they would like to expand their operation in Fort Lauderdale for our unhoused community.

They believe that they have a better opportunity to connect our population with resources that they need that ultimately assist with their re reunification, things such as providing a driver's license or identification, um, helping them to receive benefits that they need to have some source of income, helping them to make contact with family members, and also they mention the opportunity to provide bus tickets or other means of transport so that they can reconnect with family members.

They believe that in partnering here in the city and then also having a um physical location, they would be better able to provide those services.

They mentioned that they have a social worker that is on the bus, they have a 14-passenger bus.

They have social workers that are on that bus that are able to assist them.

They also have partnerships with like the DMV and other agencies that allow people to have dignity as they go into these locations to receive services.

They shared that they do not allow any minors on the bus.

A question that was asked of them is if there is opportunity to provide like programming for a day or a few hours of a day to allow families, especially with the summertime approaching.

So there may be opportunity for that.

What they also express is that they have had some communication with Briar County as well as with Pompano in their community court program to see if there's opportunity for them to expand their program in those um municipalities.

We did express that if we in our partnership with Rotary Connection that we do not want the quality of services to dwindle as they expand their operation and they understood and honored that.

But their basic interest is helping us to really have full Monday through Friday programming and support to the community so that they can do more reunifications.

All right, thank you for expounding.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um also to share additionally, I had the great opportunity on Wednesday, April 29th, um, to attend a spelling bee.

Yes, the spelling V was a competition between Oswald Park and um Will Um Warfield Park.

And when I tell you those young people, they were on they were having so much fun from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Um great opportunity to inspire the young people and allow them to shine in their light.

Um it's my understanding that um to prepare for the uh spelling bee, they were giving, of course, the list of words that uh would be a part of the list and given the um a time period to study and to prepare.

And when I tell you they came and they followed the rules, they said the word, they spelled the word, said the word, asked for it to be used in a sentence, and just it was a great opportunity, and I was really impressed and excited to witness our young participants.

But they were so they were so prepared.

And I um encouraged the parents to continue to encourage them to embrace education.

A big thank you to our city parks and recs, the staff at um Oswald Park, as well as Warfield Park.

Um just kudos, a job well done, and a way to increase literacy, um, build confidence, and also encourage our future leaders.

So that was a highlight of my activities of this month.

Also wanted to share upcoming events tonight.

I matter as a matter of fact, um, the fifth annual Providence Hospital Legacy celebration that's taking place this evening at 5 30 to 8 30 at the YMCA Um LA Lee My Zell Community Center.

Um, this is a celebration of the individuals who were actually born at Providence Hospital.

Um, more than likely at that time it was Dr.

Sixtrunk who delivered those babies, and um the to add to the history to give you a trivia to that, Dr.

Six Trunk birthed over 5,000 babies in the Northwest Corridor during that era.

So they come together and they celebrate and and just remember the history.

Over 5,000 babies, yes.

Okay, and there's still many of our neighbors who were actually um birthed at the hand of Dr.

Six Trunk and then also at Providence Hospital.

Uh-huh.

Over 20 years ago.

Okay, and here we go for Friday, May 8th.

It's the Relay for Life, American Cancer Society Relay for Life.

As we know, that is an annual event that is held at Carter Park.

It starts at 6 p.m.

and will end at 12 midnight.

This is an opportunity for us all um citywide to come out and support the um efforts of the American Cancer Society, bringing awareness and giving information part as being proactive about our health, being um proactive about being tested, and learning about all the different cancers that have been identified.

Um, a great opportunity for fellowship and front and for the community to come together.

Again, that's this Friday, Carter Park.

On May 15th, we have Carter Park Jams.

Um that would be um at 7 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

And then um I want you to mark your calendars and be prepared for Saturday, June 20th, 5 to 8 p.m.

Carter Park.

That would be the Juneteenth celebration.

Um there's three things that I wanted to ask that we as a commission would consider.

Um I too have a request for a name street being renamed or a renaming of a street.

This would be in honor of Mr.

Levi Henry Jr.

The street that we are asking for renaming is Northwest Seventh Terrace.

Um, as we know, uh Mr.

Henry Levi Henry is the founder of the West Side Gazette and has been in our community for decades, and um we wanted to remember him and honor him through naming the street there.

So as it was explained earlier, we would like to take the same process, allowing um from my commission from the commission being able to move this forward, and everything that's required, we will get with um um Ben Rogers and that team to make sure um the community is connected and we can make this move forward.

So the question is do I would could I have the support of the commission to move forward with this?

Definitely thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um we talked about um the homeless outreach and um the unification you um excuse me making a relationship with the Rotary Club, so we don't have to talk about that anymore.

I also wanted to bring um to our attention, asking for a moment of silence as well.

Um last week, um Commissioner Um Thornson and I, we were able to celebrate uh Miss Hattie Mae Curley, and um she celebrated 100 years, and the following Tuesday she passed away.

So we want to have a moment of silence for her as well today.

And one other um neighbor, uh Miss Dorothy Bailey Young.

Um we um she passed away in the community celebrated her celebration of life um last week as well.

Um this young lady, she actually, as a young lady, I believe they said she was 12.

She named Sunland Park.

She was the one a part of a contest.

She submitted the name to be known as Sunland Park.

So she's been as a young person in the community advocating and making change.

So as well, Miss Dorothy Bailey Young.

So with that, Mayor, that concludes my report.

Okay, great, thank you.

Uh just a few things.

Um last week on April 28th, uh, I participated with the Salvation Army, uh, celebrating their centennial celebration.

I was there with uh Commissioner Herbst.

Uh great turnout, and we're very thankful for the uh Salvation Army for all the great work that they do with our community.

Uh on April 30th, I was part of a uh panel discussion uh with the Bills in Sunburg Annual Development Conference.

It was in Miami, but all we did was talk about Broward County.

And uh the room was full with several hundred people, uh investors, realtors, um, and other stakeholders who talked about the uh promising opportunities there are in Broward County, and uh lots of comparisons were made to uh Palm Beach County and and Miami Dade, and um and at the end of the day, most people believe that Broward County is the place where um um opportunity exists, and uh and developers are looking forward to the future in that regard.

Uh on uh this past Saturday uh participated in the mayor's annual chess challenge.

Um I was doing battle with some uh 12 and 16-year-olds.

Um I came out even.

I beat one and one beat me, and uh, but it was it was fun.

These kids are really, really bright.

And uh uh and I'm glad that I went my hats off to Mayor uh Mike Ryan, who uh heads this thing up and uh continues this this program year after year.

So thank you, uh Mayor Ryan and uh to all the young kids who are participating in this.

Um also that day, it's a busy day on Saturday.

Uh um I along with uh the vice mayor were at the uh Tarpon Tarpin River party in the in the park.

Uh Tarp and Bend uh Neighborhood Association um uh always has their wonderful uh part um party in the park.

Um and uh and it was a great day.

The weather held out so uh and got to see all the neighbors, took a lot of pictures and helped hand out a lot of raffle prizes.

Uh that same afternoon was uh mentioned earlier the Speed of Fort Lauderdale open at the aquatic center.

Um hundreds of parents and family members were there.

My hats off to Laura Vowitt for organizing that and her team.

Uh we finally brought L'Oreal's back as being the center of swimming competition.

Um spoke with quite a few swimmers and quite a few parents and a lot of coaches who were so happy to be back in Fort Lauderdale after so many years of absence because we didn't have a facility that was capable of accommodating these these uh swim competitions.

And uh yes, we met with Katie Ledecke and uh uh and many other champions who are or future champions who continue to see Fort Lauderdale as the best place for their practice and their success.

Also that evening I attended the uh South Florida Pride concert band 40th anniversary.

Uh it was at par at the Parker 40 years, starting out as the Flamingo Freedom Band, and uh with about eight members, and now uh over the years several hundred people have been part of that uh orchestra.

But what's most uh um rewarding is the fact that uh in addition to the concert band, there's a youth orchestra, and it was started by uh the band with the expectation to help young kids, especially high school kids whose high schools did not have music programs.

So it was a way for them to be able to practice and play and perform.

And uh over the years uh uh there's been over 900 students who have matriculated through the youth orchestra.

Um were some who had even gone out to college have come back and participated, so that's uh a great contribution to our community.

Uh the next night I uh uh participated in the uh closing night of the Alstein Film Festival.

I think the noise uh issue that was brought up at our last meeting never materialized because it started to rain.

So did it okay.

Yeah, I didn't hear any any concerns.

So that explains it.

So yeah, so we didn't really have much of a street festival.

Yes.

Um so upcoming things.

Uh as been mentioned earlier on May 6th this week, uh actually actually tomorrow, the FOP Fallen Officers Memorial.

We'll be doing it right down the steps over here in front of the uh Esplanade Park.

It's at 1 30.

Hopefully the members of our community can come and participate and recognize the fallen soldiers and our falling off fallen officers in our community.

Uh the uh also uh that evening I'll be uh I'll be speaking at the Victoria Park Civic Association.

I've I I usually do that once a year, so looking forward to that.

Um the next day, the Sailing Foundation of Florida, the annual fundraising dinner at Lauderdale Yacht Club.

I'll be presenting a proclamation and uh and uh attending that as well.

Uh on Friday, we have the opening of Go Grosser at 540 North Andrews Avenue.

This is the first, yes.

This is the first uh grocery store that's uh that's um west of uh US One and this has been this is an important milestone.

Why do I say that?

It's a small store, but it's exactly what we're looking for as we try to populate Flagra Village with not just housing but amenities where people don't need to go into their cars to get to go to the grocery store, go to go to a restaurant or whatever, go get their hair done, you know, the things that everyday experiences people can walk to, and that's how you reduce traffic in a city, making pedestrian options uh the the best option rather than people having to get into their car.

Um, as was mentioned by the commissioner, Fort Lauderdale Air Show this weekend.

Um I noticed that in Miami, I saw an advertisement that Miami has a sponsor, the Hyundai Air and C show.

We don't these folks don't have a sponsor, do they?

I don't I don't I've never in the last few years we haven't really seen a headline sponsor.

The city is a major sponsor via FXE.

We haven't had an outside sponsor since McDonald's did the Air and C show, what, twelve, fifteen years ago?

Well, as McDonald's, I think Shell Oil was also a sponsor.

But the point that I'm trying to make is we need to start um encouraging these or these events um and these promoters by going back and relying on sponsors rather than taxpayer money.

You know, we we've given a lot of money.

I think it's time to pull back on that, and uh and I'm hopeful that in the years ahead that we can find ways to encourage them to depend less on the city and more on on uh private and private sponsors.

Um May 13th is the groundbreaking for the LOFS on six, that's at uh 610 Northwest Third Avenue.

And then that same day we're also doing a groundbreaking for uh oh excuse ribbon cutting for Aldridge and Larimore.

Yes, yeah, ribbon cutting.

Yeah.

Is it groundbreaking?

Groundbreaking, I'm sorry, groundbreaking.

It does say groundbreaking here, yeah.

Uh for the Aldridge in Larimore at uh 1204 Sist Trunk Boulevard.

Um see uh opportunities for housing, affordable housing, and uh um and and ways to redevelop an area that has often been uh overlooked.

Uh on May 15th, uh we're honoring Dan Lindblade in the downtowner of the year.

That's at the Global Event Center at 1130 a.m.

Um you know, Dan Lindblade has been part of our community for so many, many years, uh both as a realtor and then later as the CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce.

He's taken that organization.

He's taken that organization to great heights.

Uh he's been a great host over the years in organizing the Washington Summit, which I know many of us have been on, and uh and um it's gonna be it's gonna be a uh uh very rewarding opportunity for us to honor Dan Lindblade at that event.

Uh on the 16th, the International Swim Swimming Hall of Fame honoree ceremony at the Embassy Suites by Hilton will be taking place at 6 p.m.

I'll be attending that.

And on the 17th, I'll be speaking at the Solomon Leadership Graduation at the Downtown Jewish Center.

I was invited by Rabbi Kaplan to participate in that event.

That's at 3 p.m.

again on May 17th.

Uh a couple issues I'd like to bring up.

One on city attorney.

Uh what's going on?

I know I should have prepped you first.

Uh what's going on with the Abreu Pathway litigation in Rio Vista?

Uh that is pending.

My recollection is that there's been some discovery and uh motion for summer judgments pending and in that phase.

So moving along, but at its usual litigation pace.

Are we the are we the defendants in that case?

In that particular matter, I think that uh well there are two different cases.

There are two different cases.

Can you speak into your microphone?

Yeah.

I I will get the details on that.

Did you get the details on that?

Absolutely.

Because I got a call this morning from an attorney an attorney representing the association and uh um wanting to know you know what was our what was our further interest in seeing that those the spaces may be maintained as open public spaces.

And um and he represents the association, the neighborhood, and you know, I certainly would love to just see that kept as as open space.

Um so if you can come back to us then in a future meeting with an update on that.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um and then as many of you know, uh uh Commissioner Herbs has uh has uh decided he's gonna step down effective in November 2nd, I believe.

I forgot to mention it.

And uh so we want to thank him for his service to our community, both as uh as our our as our auditor as well as a commissioner.

But at this time, the commission now needs to make a decision about having to pass a resolution.

I think it's a resolution to to have a special election, which would be November 3rd, which is when we which is the uh election cycle this year.

Um does the commission agree that we should have a special election on November 3rd so we can give direction to our city staff to move forward and maybe do a walk-on tonight.

Yes.

That makes sense for everybody.

Mayor, we have a resolution prepared if that's what you'd like to do.

Okay, great.

Okay, excellent.

All right, and that's it for me.

So you're saying I don't get to pick my successor.

You could try.

Sure, go ahead.

Um I'm watching the audience, and I know as a commission we decided to move the order of our reports, but I really think we're boring these people.

They they've come, they have come to address matters that are on this agenda.

And I believe I'm just watching and I'm seeing um I believe that we should consider going back to the original way that we were doing this.

And that gives them an opportunity to give their opinions, and if they want to leave, they're able to leave.

But we are um forcing them to listen through the reports.

That's my take on it.

So if if we could have a short conversation, I'll find what you have to say, very interesting, but that's okay.

I don't know if I can leave.

You know, um, why do we switch it to begin?

Why do we switch it to beginning?

I I don't remember, but we all agree because it was getting late and um I don't even remember the reason was because we because our conference meetings uh ran late, uh we were pushing our our commission reports uh to uh past the evening meeting.

So sometimes we were given reports at 9 30, 10, 10 30 at night, and we didn't feel that our announcements were being uh heard by the community or any of our comments were being heard by the community.

We wanted to give them more exposure by doing it at the beginning of the conference meeting.

That was the reason why we chose that.

Okay.

All right.

But um just watching and uh even the meeting before, just watching the um interaction or lack of interaction.

Um I believe that our neighbors are here to hear more about what's on the agenda, and we could work out a way to um we can go back.

Yeah.

It's it's uh I think it's a good idea.

I have no problem going back to the old ways.

I have no problem.

Okay.

So whatever we decide is where I stand.

I just been watching um what's going on in from my neighbors, and that's my take.

Got it.

Is that what do you all think?

Fine.

I I like what we're doing because we're bringing up really important topics.

Like you just brought up an election.

Um, you just brought we we've talked about city hall, so I think those are really important.

We talked about the uh topics the radios the radio systems and these are really important topics.

So it ensures that some of these, you know, though we have full discussion around those topics.

So I think that's important to really have um together and not sometimes because sometimes what happens is we run late and then we don't get to have those important conversations.

So I like kind of what we've been doing.

Can we do what we do with uh neighbor presentations?

Split that up well, we split that up between uh afternoon and evening.

Maybe we split um maybe we alternate right the the commission reports to sometimes in the beginning and alternate beginning and end.

I don't know, just a thought.

That's the thought.

Okay.

All right.

All right, something to think about.

Yeah, something to think about just to um give a balance to what we're doing, and I agree too that we have given, and we often we always give important information, but also just to keep a balance and and being in alignment with what the expectation are for my neighbors as well.

I understand okay all right uh city manager I will be as quick as I can be given the conversation so at the last commission meeting there was a discussion about school resource officers and uh the day after we received notification from the school board that they were rescinding the communication that indicated that they would no longer need uh the city's police department to provide uh security services so we are basically at the status quo position except that one of the schools will no longer be open next school year so that will impact uh one police officer but we anticipate that that officer will transition into another facet of policing so just want to say so how how does that help us in in you know in our strategic planning for assigning police officers uh where they are needed most I mean just to come at the la just to say oh by the way we were changing our mind you know after after all the press play and all the anticipated communications that took place how do we adjust to that I mean when are they going to say again oh by the way we changed our mind again well I I think we're in a a good position considering that we likely will have vacancies at whatever point that a new announcement might might come forward.

We always have a need for sworn personnel so it's not that it would completely take away from the city's ability to navigate in that situation.

Okay.

All right please continue.

At a recent meeting the commission inquired about Mary Brickle Avenue I think it was Commissioner Glassman I shared a letter to the Commission on April 24th.

We do need some feedback we did some research and it looks like about 20 years ago the city did approve a resolution however that resolution was not transmitted to Broward County.

And so now if the city does want to move forward with a street naming for Mary Brickle we do have some considerations.

I'm gonna ask Milosh to come forward very quickly so that we can get some feedback.

Good afternoon Milos Mysori director for the city's transportation mobility department so uh as manager stated we can come back and present the resolution for the city commission to support the secondary naming of um brickle avenue or southwest I'm sorry northwest first avenue to uh Brickle Avenue um so a couple of clarifications that we would uh love to get from the city commission is uh number one um is the south section is already named Brickle Avenue as a primary naming and uh it uh has a southwest second uh southwest first avenue as a secondary naming right so would would the city commission uh like for us to bring a resolution naming uh the street north of Brower Boulevard to be called um Brickle Avenue subprimary or a secondary if we want to be consistent with what's called south of Brown Boulevard it would be a primary name.

So can so just uh correct me if I'm wrong but um in the early two thousands I could have sworn the Commission designated um Northwest First Avenue of uh so that's the portion above Broward for six blocks Mary Brickle Street.

That is correct.

It is correct.

That is correct and unfortunately the city never shared that resolution with Brower County and therefore the signs were never changed.

So given that there was the that this request dates from 2004 and that there is inconsistency in in the naming uh if we are to proceed with what the resolution called back from 2004 we are seeking some direction from the city commission.

Okay so are you looking today then to name the south of Broward also Mary Brickle?

That section of uh uh first Avenue is already called uh Brickle Avenue in as a primary naming and the secondary secondary name is uh naming is South West First Avenue.

What we are looking for is a direction from the city commissioners to uh north of uh Broward Boulevard whether we would like to have uh Brickle Avenue as a primary or secondary naming to district commissioner what are your thoughts you're the district commission I think it should be consistent and and I I like it is it's primary on one side right I mean is it possible to just move forward with that so it's consistent it is yeah that makes the most sense why would you not have it be consistent.

There is a little jog that uh Northwest First Avenue makes at about Northwest Fort uh Street, but if uh direction from the City Commission is to extend this to Say Strong Boulevard, we can do so.

Miloch, could you clarify if it's Brickle Avenue or Mary Brickle Avenue?

It's Mary Bruckle Avenue.

So the section south, thank you, uh Manager William.

So section south of Brower Boulevard is called Break the Laven.

Right.

But north is Mary Brickle.

That was a resolution from 2004.

Now, if we want to be consistent with the South section, you'd one option is to uh have it the subbreak avenue, simply Brickle Avenue.

But the I uh just because I was on the commission deck then.

The reason why we wanted it Mary Brickles, because it added a little charm.

I mean, Brickle, people think of Brickle as a big uh in uh commercial financial district down in Miami, so we didn't want to associate ourselves with that.

And by calling it Mary Brickle, I think there's a Mary Brickle village uh in uh in Miami also, but um but I think giving giving it the full name Mary Brickle, I think does it don't you think it lends lends itself better to the kind of family-oriented uh community we're trying to create in Flagger Village?

So is that what you okay?

Then to be consistent, uh would you want us also to include as part of a resolution request to change the naming on the south side to be consistent with the north side and to a read for Mary Brickle Avenue.

Yes.

And then I would not wait another 20 years for us to do this again.

You have our promise.

22.

It's the year of acceleration.

I tell the team we're accelerating this year.

Right.

Thank you.

I'm gonna expedite it.

Okay.

So I also shared with you that we received a grant, a regional infrastructure accelerator grant related to the new river crossing project.

I did get some feedback from uh many of you on the Dais.

Uh we did request two million dollars.

We were awarded six hundred and fifty million dollars.

We anticipate that we would need to six hundred and fifty.

I'm sorry, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

We can build two city halls.

We can't do that.

And and a tunnel.

And a tunnel, yes.

Yes.

So we anticipate that we would need to reduce or modify the intended scope for that grant program.

I know that we've discussed various challenges with the New River Crossing project uh as a whole at various levels, including funding and some of the partnerships uh that are currently less than stable.

So I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page on whether or not city staff should move forward with utilizing this grant, noting that there is no required city match.

It would allow us to do some due diligence that could help us as we look ahead.

If conditions were to change, we might be more prepared to advance a tunnel project.

However, uh it does require some staff time and administrative work in order to utilize this grant funding.

So I just wanted to check in with the commission and get a feel for interest in utilizing this grant.

I personally feel we should utilize it for the purposes intended.

We're just gonna have to reduce the scope of uh of our analysis, but I think since there's no match, what's there's no downside?

Yep, I agree, Mayor.

I'm with you.

Yes, yep.

Okay.

Not surprisingly, I disagree.

Um I don't think there is going to be any money coming from the federal government under the current administration.

I think any planning that you do right now will be absolutely irrelevant if there is a change in administration and there is you know, it's a very good thing.

There will be a change in administration in three years, right?

Well, it may be JD Vance, so it may not be a change in in administrative philosophy.

So we don't know who is going to be our next president.

So we may or may not have a change in philosophy as it relates to tunnels and trains and bridges and lions and tigers and bears.

So I think this is a waste of staff time.

Uh I I again um think this is a zombie project.

We should be done with it, move forward and recognize that we missed our window of opportunity back when we had a previous administration, and we should have moved faster on it.

So I I think this is a waste of still taxpayer dollars, whether it's city taxpayer dollars or federal taxpayer dollars, they're still taxpayer dollars, and I object philosophically to wasting those funds.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I think the majority still agrees to go forward.

So we have yeah.

Thank you for the feedback.

I also want to highlight the city's participation in preparation for the IPW convention.

The commission had asked uh how will the city be engaging?

And so various members of our team, especially our economic development division and our strategic communications department have been actively engaging with Visit Lauderdale and the event promoters.

Uh you would have seen in the letter to commission various events taking place right here in the city of Fort Lauderdale.

And so I want to make sure that you're aware that we will be putting up some poll banners uh basically welcoming event attendees.

And I think can we do something more exciting than that?

Oh, there's a whole list of things that we're doing, Mayor.

Uh we're gonna have an activation at the convention center.

There is a press brunch occurring at the fort.

There's an opening night event right here on Fort Lauderdale Beach.

So there's so many moments to highlight our city.

Our public works, parks and recreation, and police departments are working together to beautify, enhance, and provide uh a safe experience for those event attendees.

We also have our transportation mobility department strategically planning to utilize circuit to allow and attendees to uh move throughout the city seamlessly.

So we're very prepared and we're excited about it.

Okay.

We also have America 250, uh, another commission request for us to become more engaged and involved.

Uh you should have seen a communication related to America 250 poll banners.

We're gonna do a commemorative logo.

We have various events coming up that we are going to tie to the America 250 celebration, including the air show, the Great American Beach Party, Fourth of July Spectacular, uh, with the Winterfest Boat Parade closing out the year.

So we're really excited about that as well.

Our city with regard to the air show, I still I'm I was corrected.

It's called the AirDot Air Show.

I don't know who AirDot is, but um they do have a sponsor, so that's that that might be new to this year.

I don't remember it being there last year.

Or is that just or is that just Brian Lilly's company name?

I'm not sure.

That's that's what I call it.

Sponsor.

Is that right?

I think it's just his company.

I think it's his company.

Okay.

All right.

Well, my my my position stands, you know.

Because they do them not just in Fort Lord that I do them all around.

I think it's called air that like it's a whole series.

Okay, thank you.

No problem.

Okay.

So our city is the recipient of the Gold Bell seal for workplace mental health from Mental Health America, as well as uh we earned the 2026 Best Wellness Employer Gold Gold Certification through the Wellness Workday certification.

So I just want to highlight our human resources department for always promoting uh wellness for our employees.

Uh this week uh the mayor and I received a communication from Commissioner Lamar Fisher from Broward County, indicating that the county would be rolling out an application for funding support for FIFA World Cup related events and activations.

So if the city wanted to host an event, the county is providing some matching dollars uh that would allow the city to offset costs for any related event uh that's eligible, including a watch party, soccer clinics, and the like.

So I I I'm not sure if the commission is interested in us activating uh for FIFA World Cup, but it's an opportunity made available through Broward County.

Again, I have no I I really think this is a county undertaking.

I don't really see any benefit to the city.

Um it is matching money, so we got to put up money ourselves, and it's up to $10,000.

So you know, none of the events are taking place in in our city, none of them taking place in Broward County.

Um I know that there are hotels are being occupied by many of the players and the uh administrative staff, but you know, again, I don't see a return on investment here.

Do we know do we know at all if uh intermiami is going to be doing any events watching any of the performances up at Chase Stadium?

I have not been made aware of any events to be hosted or programmed by Inter Miami.

I do believe that the stadium may be a training facility or practice facility for uh some of the teams that are engaging.

Right, okay.

No appetite on the commission.

Okay, I haven't heard I haven't heard consensus on that.

Okay, last but not least, we are starting our sandbag distribution program, which is enhanced last year.

Uh we took some of the effort uh out of it on the part of our residents, and we have pre-filled bags available May through November, starting the weekend of May 16th.

So every third Saturday and Sunday of the month from 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

We will be distributing sandbags at the following locations Floyd Hall Stadium, George English Park, Holiday Park, Mills Pond Park, and Riverland Park.

Last year we distributed over 4,000 bags.

We will also have the self-serve sandbag operation.

We will continue that some people do enjoy that and would like to have bags on those off periods when we're not doing our own distribution program.

So that is still available.

And that concludes my report mayor.

Okay.

Before I proceed I was handed a uh a card by a person who wanted to speak.

His name is Michael Gerhart and and I don't know what item he's here for because it doesn't indicate it just says city manager's office.

Is Michael here?

Sir Item 4.

Oh because it wasn't listed on item four.

So so you want business four?

Business four.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll get there.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, City Manager, City Attorney.

Do you have a report?

Do you have a report?

No Mayor.

None today.

Okay, great.

Okay.

All right.

So let us proceed with the with the agenda.

Uh we'll go on to business one, uh Broward Solid Waste Authority to provide the city commissioner with an update on his master plan and facilities amendment, public works department.

I want to also recognize Commissioner Beam Fur who's here on this on he'll he'll be the first one to speak.

But and I thank you for being here today, Commissioner.

Why don't you sit up front?

This isn't church we have Brad Cain Public Works Director but Mayor did you did you indicate that Commissioner Fur would be the first to speak or after the presentation.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good up good afternoon Mayor Trans Talis.

Vice Mayor Florence and thank you for those kind words fellow commissioners.

I'm just here to just do a brief introduction on the item and I will let leave it to uh Commissioner Fur and staff to uh present the item but what you're going to hear today is a presentation from the interim executive director of the Broward County Solid Waste Authority on the benefits of joining the SWA going forward a decision that the city commission will have to make over the next couple of months today is not for any decision making it's for informational purposes only and if the commission has any questions Mr.

May will certainly answer them or Commissioner Fur.

Our steps going forward just for everybody to know is staff will come back on May 19th with a presentation to discuss the Solid waste master plan and the facilities amendment key points for further discussion and future recommendations going forward and we will have that discussion on the 19th or set another date in June for further discussion on whether or not the city of Fort Lauderdale will join the SWA or not but that's what I just wanted to share with everybody so there was no decisions that needs to be made today this is just a present presentation by the interim executive director uh on the benefits of the SWA.

Great thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Fur Mayor Wall Commissioner Fur's coming up to the city attorney leave Chief or Chief okay I just city manager I just want to make sure Commissioner Fur and I are both members of the Solid Waste Authority Board.

It was it was it was notice so it's notice so I think we're we're fine okay mayor I just want to no good as long as it's appropriate.

Thank you Mayor and thank you and thank you for that then first of all good afternoon everybody good afternoon mayor commissioners uh city manager city attorney um we're kind of here on a road show tour we're going from city to city uh to try to get to yes no guitar yeah I know this somewhere uh I'm here with uh Sam may who's the executive director oh you you moved up Daniel Dietz who's our uh consultant and and mayor Loutai from the Broward League of cities um you know it wasn't that long ago where I was sitting in in your seat as a Hollywood city commissioner and when I was a Hollywood city commissioner the one thing I always had to worry about was whether or not the garbage got picked up I didn't have to worry about anything else and if it didn't get picked up you as you guys do you make a call and make sure it gets picked up as a county commissioner I've had to worry about where it goes when it gets picked up and then what happens to it.

I I was on the RRB as a Hollywood city commissioner.

So I've had uh a breadth of experience on it and after I be I became a county commissioner after the RRB had dissolved so I kind of had an eye on what what was going to happen and I watched as there was there is a lot of chaos a lot of struggle everybody trying to figure out where do we go where who we're going to be with where we're going to take our garbage I saw 13 cities take their garbage to Palm Beach waste energy plant I saw all of our recycling rates plummet from 60% down to 30.

So it was a mess.

And so around 2015, 2016, a number of city commissioners throughout the county and I got together and we said maybe there's a better way to do this.

And so we started trying to put something together.

It's been 10 years of meetings, literally hundreds of meetings of trying to put this solid waste authority together, taking pictures of garbage all over the in people's garbage to find out what kind of garbage is in this county.

Well, you know, what you know what if you if you're looking at uh how much glass, how much uh plastic, all these kind of things we've been doing for just a number of years.

Um throughout that whole time, there has been one consistent um part of it, and it has been the global agreement, which Fort Lauderdale is a part of.

It has been the one consistent agreement for the last 35 years that has kept your rates and most and those cities that are part of the global agreement, has kept them stable and has kept them low when you look at all of it because we have a most favored nation status.

Nobody can have a lower price than us, and that's where we're trying to get to again.

Uh, we're gonna we'll say that with the global global agreement.

But I'm my my hope is that we get to doing it doing that same thing, that same most favorite station nation status through recycling.

But what I think what you're gonna see is over the next couple years, if this happens, is we have we knew that we were running out of landfill space.

We also knew we were running that the waste energy is is is capped.

It can't get you know, it's it can't get any more.

At the same time, we were we're still using that waste energy facility.

Right.

Sure, absolutely.

But it was a time I mean there was a time when we weren't using enough of it and we were being charged for not using the well not only what not only did were we not using enough of it after the dissolution of the RRB, we that's when the other one got dismantled because of that, which is a crazy we don't even want to go there, right?

Don't want to go there.

Um through all this, you know, we've we over the last year we have made changed our from the county's perspective.

We've had some legislation on the landfill.

We have now said no more organics will be going into the landfill.

Why?

Because that is a the prime generator of methane.

That that landfill is one of the biggest in the world, and we don't want to be adding any more to that.

You all have been one of the main people with climate change.

You guys have done a great job with it with the county.

So we decided we're not gonna do that anymore.

We're gonna take all of our organics to Okeechobee and compost all of it.

That's part of what the SW is looking to do, divert all of these organics there out to the BIC, which is a Broward County landfill, where you could take all your yard waste, start to do glass recycling out there, start to do mulching out there, all those different things that are not happening right now.

So there's a lot of good possibilities that are that I think uh would be uh would be good.

We're trying to get to a recycling rate of 75%.

Why that?

That is not an arbitrary number.

If we can get to that, we don't have to build another waste energy plant.

If we don't get there, we're gonna have to.

So we're gonna have that's that's part of, and that's another billion dollar proposition.

We don't want to have to do that.

So the only way to not do that is to divert, reduce all the things, recycle, and all those things that I think you're gonna see all of the all the cities are trying to do it.

Thank you all for being a part of the uh solid waste authority.

Steve, I know you were uh uh part of this at the beginning of this, and and I do just for the first seven of the ten years.

Okay.

That's okay.

And and I do think Fort Lauderdale has a unique position on this.

You have more tonnage than everybody.

Many of these decisions are based on tonnage.

The decisions have to be have to reach a threshold of certain tonnage.

You you have a have a unique position that you would have a be able to steer have and have a lot of influence in how this goes, on what on what things go where and all of that.

I think you guys need to be the leaders on this.

I really do.

You need to be there and you need to be a part of it.

Um I can't imagine trying to go it alone.

If you try to go it alone, there's a big difference in terms of economies of scale.

When we're when we're doing a contract, if we're doing a contract with somebody, and we come in and we say we've got two million tons of garbage, it's a lot different from coming in and say I got 100,000.

And we've seen, and I think Daniel can tell you what's happening in Orlando when when you were when he was able to do tiered rates, huge difference, huge difference.

And so you want to be a part of that.

You want to be part of that, and you want to be part of the um the evolution of all this.

There are there's a real connection.

I've I've I've seen over the years of between not only garbage but environment, climate change, all these things.

They're all they're all interconnected.

And and this is a place where you where I think we're gonna be able to make a huge difference uh in the world, to be honest.

Because we're I've just gotten back from both Brazil at COP and London and the resilient cities.

We when we talked about what we were doing with landfills, they're wanting to do the same thing now.

So they're you know, we we have a chance to be a leader here, and you guys have a chance to be part of that.

And I'd and I'd like to see that.

So with that, I I'm happy to answer any questions, but our technical people are here and they know it a lot better than I do.

But I'm happy to answer that.

All right.

Actually, Commissioner, if I may, thank you.

Um so unfortunately, I too was involved with the RRB.

Believe you, the odd uh didn't have to be.

Uh access to the records.

Okay.

We had to sue them to get access to the records.

So the county has not been a good partner to the cities with the RRB, and I I was actually at the table during the mediation sessions, and I know how we got the Alpha 250 site and everything else that went along with it.

So, what are you going to share with me that I can tell my residents about two things?

Number one, for the what 30 years of the RRB, we paid some of the highest rates possible for tipping.

And number two, when it came time to amicably dissolve uh the county was not a good partner in amicably dissolving and distributing the resources in accordance with an interlocal agreement that we had.

So what's different?

Let me I'll I'll take I'll take both of them.

Um first of all, this is much more city centric.

This is not run by the county.

This is run by the cities.

And if you look at the governing board, it is uh I'm one vote on that on that governing board, and I'm one vote on the executive committee.

So this is a city centric.

You are you are the you are the SWA.

It is not the county doing well, how come we were kicked off the executive board then?

You were never kicked off.

You didn't get what happened is there's there's a certain number of people that are there's there's ten, I believe it's ten members on the large uh cities, ten on the middle cities.

I mean no, it's I'm sorry, nine, nine, and nine and small cities.

So on the executive committee, there are five cities out of those ten that are elected to be on the executive committee.

And there were there was you know whatever we shouldn't shouldn't Fort L'Oreal be a member ex officio because we are the largest user.

I actually I actually agree with you on that.

Yeah, I actually agree with you and much like on like with Career Source, where and and the TDC, right?

The largest cities is I actually agree with you on that.

Let me go back to what you're talking about.

One it's city-centric, and when you were talking about the higher fees, as you know, um that was a that was paying off a bond.

There was an there was an escalator that was going on, and yeah, it got over over a hundred dollars per ton.

Right.

As you know, we were also all, and I I remember with Hollywood getting a rebate every year.

I remember when Hollywood got a two million dollar rebate one year.

Once those bonds were paid off, then what should have been happening is all the champagne corks popping, and I because the the rate should have just plummeted, and it did, not to not to where we all wanted to go to.

That was a lot of negotiation, and part of why the dissolution happened.

But the bond that bond escalators what caused that up to over a hundred, and then the the as soon as it paid off, it went down to fifty-seven, I believe.

But I think what you also saw.

No, it went down to forty forty-two.

What what drove that was competition because prior to the dissolution of the RRB, waste management had exclusive flow direction under the ILA, right?

And so once we had competition, Bergeron came in and competed.

Once we had competition in the marketplace, then rates fell.

And so what I'm concerned about is we're not we're basically gonna lock ourselves into another one of these long-term contracts where we have exclusivity and we don't have competition in the marketplace.

The only thing that guarantees low rates is marketplace competition.

I would disagree with you because the global agreement has made sure that is the lowest rate right now, and you get most favored nation status.

If you have a right now, if you have with our agreement with um wheel of radar now FCC, requires that our our rate is lower than anybody's, any spot market.

We get the lowest one.

We expect the same thing with when we go out for a recycling bid, we will be asking that same thing.

And and then if anybody has a uh tries to undercut us, we'll go for most favored nation and still get the lower rate.

Let me ask you those.

Because we're coming in with we have all the leverage in the world.

So you know, two other interesting things happened when we got to the end of that.

So you talk about the bonds.

I believe there were 500 million dollars for the two waste to energy plants.

So we the residents of Broward County paid for two waste to energy plants.

We turned them over.

We didn't turn them over.

Part of the agreement at the very beginning was the the guy from here's what I've heard.

Right.

And and and I wasn't there.

But the county wasn't didn't want to take on the risk because it was a new um technology.

In exchange for that, what they said is you build it, you'll still own it.

We never turned them over.

They they were still owning it with the tipping fees that were paying for it.

So let me let me see if I understand that.

So we issued the bonds, we paid off the bonds.

Well through tipping fees.

Through tipping fees, correct.

So they owned it, but we pay for it?

Yes.

Because those bonds we financed it.

So we financed it, which typically would have made us.

I'm not saying that was a great deal.

Okay.

Okay.

I came in after way after that.

I mean, because at the end of it, they shut down one of the plants, and now we're saying we don't have enough, we don't have enough uh ability to, you know, um they shut it down because there wasn't enough because all we were sending all of our garbage to Palm Beach.

And and they ended up getting their recycling rates went sky high, ours plummeted, and then they said, well, we're not gonna we're nobody sending stuff to our plant, we're gonna dismantle because they I think they probably do make more money landfilling it.

So you know it's an interesting thing, right?

So Palm Beach County built a waste to energy plant while we were shutting our second one down.

Exactly.

Something odd in that dynamic there that they found that there was a that there was enough flow to build a brand new plant and finance it while we here in Broward were saying there was not enough garbage to support our two plants.

And they were using they were using our garbage for the garbage to do that.

And apparently it made more sense market wise for our provider to ship their trash north and shut down the facility here rather than keep both of them operating at capacity.

Yeah.

No, but but but my last question, mayor, my last question on this I apologize.

One one last one.

So we talk about getting to 75 percent recycling.

Yeah.

And there's only a hand the only a handful of cities in the country at 75 percent San Francisco, LA, San Jose.

The entire state of California is only a 37 percent.

The most progressive state in the entire country is only a 37 percent recycling.

It is a stretch goal to say the least.

The only one locally here is Palm Beach, and it's because they're sending it all to their waste, but we'll leave that aside.

The likelihood of us getting the 75 percent when China has stopped buying buying most of the recycled goods that most of the world used to ship is not going to be.

That's with those recycling credits, and I'm sure you know about that.

75 percent is a very I'm not disagreeing.

That is a very hard one to reach.

But you and you have to have a very good plan, a very good educational outreach for that to happen.

But the odd the the you know the uh the other way to go is not try to not to try at all.

Well, which doesn't make sense at all.

But we've been trying for the better part of 40 years right now, and we've never cracked 50 percent across the city.

Well, no, that's not true.

We got 60 percent in in 2012.

And it fell back immediately.

So we got that.

When everything billparts, yeah.

I mean, so no, but uh I want to I want to know how this makes sense for us to try and get to something that we've never gotten to, we've never been able to sustain.

Let me put it that way.

Nobody else across the country has been able to sustain it.

So I I I would I would agree with you if we were saying, hey, let's try this and see if it works, but we've tried it and we already know it doesn't work.

I would I would disagree.

We we have tried it and it did work.

And it was working.

It worked while we were all together.

It didn't work when we were apart.

So what is that's the big difference that's the big difference?

What is the ask here?

The ask is that you become part of the SWA.

You are you are going to uh pass a facilities amendment.

Um and we and the master plan has already been adopted by the governing board.

So that the ask is that you pass the facilities amendment and you become part of the SWA.

Right.

And what's the and what's the downside from your perspective if we don't become what I mean?

We have to find our own place to to dump our garbage.

Correct.

You would be you would be out on your own doing your own contracts, you know, at the mercy of the private sector.

So you would be you would be negotiating by yourself, not having the leverage of saying we have five million tons of garbage in.

So you're saying that that's that that the advantage of piggybacking on the contract that that the county and the associated cities would have would be to our advantage.

And and where is the ultimate uh where's the ultimate destination of all this garbage?

There's numerous places, and that's the difference.

You would also have access to being able to compost in Okeechobee, you'd be you'd have the access to mulching at the BIC, glass recycling at the BIC, C and D, all those different things become at your disposal.

By not doing that, you don't have access to that.

Okay.

Okay.

Did waste management build a recycling plan out west?

They didn't and state of the art.

Right.

Pretty amazing.

So worth a tour.

Right.

But I mean, is is the is the SWA planning to contract with waste management, or does waste management contract privately and separately with different cities?

We would be putting out an RFP, and they would be, I'm sure, responding to that.

Right.

And then we would, if, you know, I'm sure whoever it is, we would be um negotiating with them.

All right.

So you're saying that you're saying that by by joining the uh the SWA, we would have more leverage and getting a lower price for recycling our products, regardless of what level of recycling we achieve rather than doing it on our own.

Correct.

I see.

Okay.

Okay.

Any more questions?

Anyone have any questions?

Yes, thank you.

And I know that we as a board bread has told us we're going to discuss this on May 19th, and we'll we'll figure this out.

But just a couple of things, and I think it's really important.

First, I want to commend you for your passion and your knowledge, and I mean, I know how important this is to you, and you've been a real driving force in this.

So I want to say thank you for all of your work.

It's it's greatly appreciated.

Um I want to know what are you doing, maybe personally or um SWA in terms of getting cities like Hallendale Beach, Pompano Beach, Pembroke Pines, these are major cities that are not participating right now.

So I know you said it's important that Fort Lauderdale participates, but I know that they still can participate if they want.

But is there an aggressive campaign?

These are major cities that are not participating.

What are we doing about that?

Good quote.

Very good question.

Pompano Beach has kind of a sweetheart deal with waste management.

I'll just say, you know, a very good deal with them that ends in 2027.

So they can't leave that contract until then.

I think they will be, they're very interested in what's going on at the with the SWA after that.

Pembroke Pines, Angelo and I, Mayor Casillo and I were having a uh uh quite a Facebook discussion yesterday.

Um I'll just leave it at that.

Yes.

Right amongst the discussion, exactly.

And um, you know, Pimber Pines is all a lot of these things are going to be happening very close to Pembroke Pines.

He they were they wanted to see the master plan first, which I totally respect.

He didn't want to he didn't want to get out ahead of it till it was adopted.

It just got adopted.

So now he's taking a good look at it.

I've just written him a five-page letter yesterday.

Uh he's he's reading over it.

But I but because uh the uh the BIC is right in his backyard, as is the recycling center, these things make a lot of sense for Pembroke Pines to me.

Um they've always they didn't they never were part of the RRB either, and neither was Hollandale or Pompano.

So they kind of have their own individualistic nature.

We'll just leave it at that.

I understand.

I think so it's important if they could participate.

Yeah, I do.

And and lastly, I I just want to emphasize how important it is.

I don't know what you can do as one person, um, but the SWA must include Fort Lauderdale on the executive committee.

It's ludicrous that our city was not voted on to be uh on that.

You mentioned the governing board.

Every city is part of the governing board.

Right.

Would be due.

But the Fort Lauderdale, the city of Fort Lauderdale must be on the executive committee where those decisions are being made.

It makes no sense.

And there's it makes no sense at all.

So I I totally just I think that's really important for us to participate even.

I mean, that's like I agree with you.

That's a game change.

And there's an opening coming in November.

That I think that is what would happen.

Okay.

Thank you for whatever you can do to make that happen.

Don't go far.

But I'll sit up here.

Okay.

Stephanie Jaffe, Stephanie, are you here?

I can't give you the same amount of time as the Commissioner, but please I can't give you the same amount of time as the Commissioner.

But okay, good.

I give you two minutes.

Okay.

As a Barrow County resident, I urge the City of Fort Lauderdale to follow the Broward County Solid Waste Authority governing board's unanimous recommendation to approve the solid waste master plan and facilities plan.

You may be asking, can we afford this?

But the more pressing question is, can we afford not to?

Broward County faces a solid waste crisis that is already here.

We generate approximately 20,000 pounds of waste every minute.

And we are rapidly exhausting our landfill and incineration capacity.

The consequences of inaction are not abstract.

They mean higher costs, fewer options, and a diminished quality of life for every resident and business in our county.

By contrast, prioritizing reuse, recycling, and composting saves taxpayer money, reduces government spending on waste and resilience infrastructure, creates local jobs, cuts our dependence on foreign raw materials, lowers insurance costs for cities and businesses and residents, and keeps our land, air and water cleaner and cooler for our families and communities.

The cost of not approving this plan is simply too high, especially when weighed against moving forward at less than three dollars per household per year.

I mean, to me that's pretty amazing.

I am particularly encouraged by the diligence and leadership demonstrated by the SWA governing board, which voted unanimously, so that includes Fort Lauderdale to recommend both plans.

Their work reflects extensive public engagement, collaboration with me with municipalities, local businesses, and industry stakeholders, and is a thoughtful practical approach to reducing waste through education, maximizing the use of existing infrastructure, and leveraging economies of scale that only countywide cooperation makes possible.

Notably, this plan achieves meaningful progress at a cost to households that is less than a single cup of coffee per year.

I respectfully urge your commission to vote in favor on May 19th of this plan and continue the collaborative effort that municipalities across Broward County have helped shape from the outset.

Thank you for your service to our community and to the generations who will inherit it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I just also want to say to Mr.

Herbst about the recycling.

The new plant is amazing.

And I really encourage all of you to go look at that recycling plan because they can do things they've never done before, and they sell these stuff, their commodities, which is new and it's it's really incredible.

So I urge you to go see it.

The problem is not the plant where the recycling takes place.

The problem is the global market for recycling has collapsed.

So recycling programs used to generate money, now they cost more.

They are.

And if you go take that, take that tour, you'll be really really good.

They have people, it's people who deal with the commodities market full time.

They're a huge organization, and they're really selling this stuff for profit.

It's amazing.

China was the number one buyer of recycled material, and they no longer buy from us.

The only things that are being profitably recycled are glass and aluminum.

That's it, and and cardboard for all the Amazon boxes that we all have delivered every day to our house.

That's it.

There really is.

But that's a lot.

All right, okay.

But plastics.

And no, actually, plastic doesn't work.

Plastic doesn't work.

The market for that has collapsed globally.

They don't want our trash.

It doesn't work anymore.

Just take the tour.

Just take the tour.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Linda, Linda Gonzalez, followed by Sam May.

Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item?

Okay.

Hello, Linda.

Thank you, Mayor Trentalis.

Thank you to all of the commissioners for all of your hard work that we've had the pleasure of listening to before this discussion.

I just want to say that as the Sierra Club member and as the League of Women Voters member, we have been for the many years that we have been working on this and led by Mayor of Broward Bean Fur.

We've been following these meetings very closely for the last many, many years, attending many of the meetings.

And I will just say at the outset that we are heartily in support of this master plan as residents of our county and of our individual cities.

We need this.

It is a forward-looking market-based plan that will reduce the cost long-term for all of us.

It will save our help save our environment, our clean water, our clean air, and we need it.

Fort Lauderdale is a leader.

You have always been a leader.

You're the big kids on the block, and we need you to be part of this plan.

We need your leadership in our county now more than ever, so that the residents in Broward can work together for this market-based forward-looking plan to solve this looming crisis.

We have over five million tons of solid waste that we dispose of somewhere every year.

That's over 200,000 pounds per minute, if you can imagine that.

So yes, we do have a looming crisis.

We need all of us to work together.

We finally have a comprehensive plan that will work, but it's precisely precisely because it is a comprehensive plan that eliminates the confusion of our residents.

Because right now we had many diverse individual city programs.

There's confusion among our county residents.

With this comprehensive, thank you.

With this comprehensive plan, our residents can all work together to achieve the economies of scale that we need to get realize the full market value of the products that can be recycled and reuse far more than the glass and the plastics.

There are other in that I um there are experts here who can talk about it about it.

But we have we need to recover the potential.

Um we've talked about the state required 75% recycling requirement, but approximately 64% of the waste that we now send to the landfill or our single remaining incinerator could be diverted if we work together to achieve the goals of this plan.

But we need your participation to make it happen.

As we found as Miami Dade has found out, transporting the solid waste elsewhere costs millions of dollars, and we're losing the elsewhere.

There is no elsewhere to transport it.

So we must recover the economic value, the market value of these goods.

There's um construction and demolition products that we can recover.

There's yard waste, there are all sorts of items that are just ending up in that landfill, filling it up.

That can be diverted, and we must work together.

Rather than siege city bargaining alone, this uh multi-city approach leverages our bargaining authority as uh Mayor Fur has mentioned, gives us the most favored nation that are rates.

Um this gives you the ability to better plan your budgets with the long-term predictable costs that are negotiated by the Solid Waste Authority, of which you will all be voting members.

All right, thank you, Linda.

I gotta do that.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate your consideration of this.

Please do the right thing and vote.

Yes.

We need this plan.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Sam May.

Oh, you did you want to say anything?

Add to your comments.

Do you have any additional comments?

You sign up to speak.

Is it just for questions you wanted to respond to?

No, no questions.

I mean, I'm not sure.

Oh, no, I didn't realize when I signed up.

Okay, great.

Anyone else wish to speak on this?

Brad, could you come up here for a second?

So, bottom line, why do they need us?

And why do we need that?

Two questions.

Well, I will say this to start.

Uh I think that when we come back with our presentation on the 19th, we're going to discuss the key points of the Solid Waste Master Plan and the facilities amendment, and we'll be able to have more of a robust discussion.

The the tonnage, there are requirements that the SWA needs for it to exist, and Fort Lauderdale having some of the most the most tons in the system, it's it's key.

Um for them to go forward.

Go forward with what?

To exist.

The SWA wouldn't exist if certain cities dropped out of it.

So the bottom line is where does this all go?

Does it matter?

I mean, we're going to all send it to the same place.

Does it matter whether it go through the SWA or does it matter that can it does it matter if we just did it on our own?

There's different.

I mean, there's different places it can go.

Uh if the city just, for instance, did a competitive solicitation just for its tonnages by itself, there would certainly be market players that would be interested in having our business that wouldn't necessarily go to the incinerator, but there are other disposal options as well.

But Commissioner uh Fur said that we'd get a better rate if we went through the SWA because of the uh because of the capacity that we uh that Fort Lauderdale would add to the total total amount of uh disposal.

We get very good rates now, don't we?

We we get rates as part of um the existing interlocal agreement.

Yes.

Could we get better rates on our own?

Potentially.

I mean, again, I can't I don't want to get into all the details of of all of that because I I think it's important to go through the items in the two agreements uh and kind of give you where staff is at that point.

But um I I again I always think there's there's volume and numbers is good, but for Lauderdale is one of the largest cities in South Florida, so you know our tons make a big difference.

Okay.

Mayor, I I think the issue is the the facility is gonna cost in excess of a billion dollars, and in order for it to make sense from an economic perspective, they need a certain volume of trash to come into it, and without our participation and one or two other cities, the volume simply isn't there.

And the billion dollars is no longer economically feasible without a guarantee of a certain level of flow to the facility.

So with without our participation, um it may not make sense.

Okay, so the facility is uh is a trash to energy facility again?

So what what the SWA has been proposing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is what's going to be roughly a billion dollar facility.

Yeah, but what what kind of facilities are gonna facility?

What kind of facilities is it going to be?

The SWA on the scenario does not look at doing a uh waste energy plant right now.

The idea is that if we're able to divert reducing everything, we don't have to buy one.

So our plan to to uh for everybody to do this together is to avoid having to do a billion dollar plant.

And let me let me answer one one part if it's okay.

The reason Fort Lot is important on this is that we we have to get 80 percent of the cities and the tonnage for this SWA to exist.

Otherwise on August 14th, it all goes away.

Literally.

Okay.

So I I get that part.

Okay, but I'm just saying, so what does what's the what's the what's the solution that the SWA offers that makes it flow control?

What's that?

Flow control.

Flow control.

In other words, by by all the cities saying together we're going to send our stuff here, here, and here.

You are able to leverage your your uh economies of scale.

Economies of scale.

That's what it's really what it is.

That's what it comes down to.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

So let me see if I understand that.

So there's no plan facility.

When I'm reading about the 40-year master plan and this billion dollar facility that's planning to be built, that's not part of your plan.

Apparently not.

Okay.

So apparently all the reports I've ever read are wrong.

That no, that it if you look in the master plan, there's scenario A, B, C, D, and E.

Okay.

So there is one in there.

I just want to make sure I'm not sure.

There is one.

Okay.

But we have we have all voted to do scenario A.

Okay.

So what you want to do is look at the master plan, look at scenario A.

That's not in there.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor, did you want to say something?

Yeah.

Thanks, Mayor.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Brad, and thank you, uh, Sam and Commissioner for being here.

Um so just um being a uh a new member of the SWA uh board, just a couple thoughts here.

So but my sense is that uh let's start off with this.

In my view, City of Fort Lauderdale offers uh trash uh recycling yard waste services that in my view is the gold standard.

So and Brad, I want to you know check in with you here, but we offer you know twice a week curbside trash pickup, once a week yard pickup, once a week recycling pickup, bulk pickup.

That is a level of service that really few other, if any cities in Broward County offer.

Is that fair?

To the extent we offer it, correct.

Yeah.

So that is fantastic.

Not there are a lot of other cities that do not offer, for example, in for example recycling at the curbside.

Is that right?

Okay.

So Mayor, in my view, what this does is from a just a service for the moment, and we're gonna want to talk about finances.

From a service standpoint, this would help other municipalities that don't have the level of amazing service we have in the city of Fort Lauderdale, get to that level of service.

Is that Brad?

Is that I don't want to speak for the them, but I think it's to try to No, if if if it's no, Sam, you're saying no, it sounds like.

Okay.

Sam may inter Sam Ma Interim, executive director of the Barbara Soldwig's authority.

I don't believe it's going to help those cities get that level of service.

You have that level of service because of the haulers that you have.

The hauling contracts have nothing to do with this.

This is all about disposal.

It it's a great level of service you have, and you provide that level of service, and you're doing all most of the things that the um SWA.

That the Solid Waste Authority would be, you know, kind of as you said, like the the gold excuse me, the gold standard.

They're going to be looking at composting as um, as the mayor said, uh all the all the organics will be going to the goal is for all the organics to be processed at one location.

Right now, they're not processed at one location.

They're being they're being commingled in and going to um the waste of energy plant for the most part.

So some of those things are the big thing is the economies of scale.

You have you know, you're um about somewhere around 20 percent, something like that of of all of the um waste in this generated in Broward County, but you're not that whole amount of it.

So yes, you can as a solid waste authority, you're gonna be able to get a better rate by going in and going to these disposal facilities and um and bringing in there, you know 10 times not 10 times as much, five times as much as what you're what you are bringing in there, but also those those facilities then can um they can plan, they can budget for what they're gonna be doing, you know, 10, 20 years from now.

Because right now they don't have 20-year commitments, and that's what we're looking to give them is a 20-year commitment so they can um they can get the best um bang for their buck, basically.

You know, they can maximize their efficiencies in their plants, and that's what we're looking to do is ma for them to be able to maximize their efficiencies and utilize those plants to the maximum amount and then having the lowest cost by doing that.

So, how will SWA then it sounds like uh how will SWA encourage other municipalities to recycle if they are not recycling at the level that we want them to?

Through education and outreach.

That's the main thing education and they got to spend the money on the hauling.

That's the problem.

Most of the people have have curbside pickup.

There's there's a few that don't, but most of them have curbside pickup.

Okay, so then so how are we going to achieve that 70 percent if it's already happening?

That's the lofty goal.

I can tell you, it's a lofty goal.

It really is.

I'm you know the goal.

It it is.

I mean, and and there's a lot of the there's a lot of the um there's a lot of credits that you get with that.

When you're looking at the true recycling, it's not quite 75 percent.

But a lot of it's through C and D also, through commercial C and D.

There's a lot of weight is commercial uh construction and demolition debris.

A lot of weight in in commercial construction and demolition debris, and that's one of the one of the key areas we're looking at also.

It may not necessarily be on your municipal side as far as the heavy weight on the um uh recycling, the to reach that 75 percent level.

So I mean I think we're at 38 percent right now, if I remember correctly, ballpark, right?

Thirty-eight percent of the and again that's roughly comparable to the entire state of California, which last time I checked is about as progressive as it gets in terms of recycling.

I know when I was out there, they kept looking giving me dirty looks every time I threw anything away.

So if you if you go to any of the the the facility the disposal facilities and you look and see what's going in there, you you can you'll be able to say that we can do better because I was at one recently and I was looking at all the cardboard that came in there, and I'm going that's just unbelievable the amount of cardboard that's going there in there, and that cardboard is is like one of the best commodities right now is cardboard and and it's just going right to uh either the the burn the waste of energy or being landfilled, and there's no reason for that, you know.

So the SWA, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying the SWA is not going to by leveraging economies of scale, the SWA is not going to create greater uh ability incentive for recycling.

Everyone's already recycling.

It's just through the SWA's education that you're gonna get more recycling.

Not necessarily true.

Yeah, there there will be there will be because right now there's recycling is not going is um it's not all going to um MERS.

Uh there they're going to some of it's going to waste energy.

And so we don't want the recycling to go to waste energy.

We'd like the for the recycling to go to um uh you know to be actually be recycled and not to be converted to waste energy.

We like to save that capacity of waste energy for the things that can't be recycled and utilize um utilize the waste of energy facilities for that, for the things that can't be recycled, can't be uh composted, things of that nature.

And so SWA will allow for greater bifurcation of recycled materials to go to those places you're saying.

Yes.

I believe that would be correct.

Uh it's gonna be flow control.

And the flow control is going to have the compost will be going to the compostable um uh facilities, uh the recycled material will be going to the recycle recycling facilities, um, and the um the solid waste things that can't be burned um and converted to waste energy will go to the landfills.

But that's the that's the last option that we want to do is go into the landfills.

Thanks.

Hopefully that answered some of the questions, I hope.

Thank you, sir.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

And if you'd like to speak to Daniel, he's our he's our technical consultant.

We're going to bring this up again at our next meeting.

So we'll be able to talk then.

Okay, sir.

Before we leave that topic, I just have one other so city manager Brad.

I think I think an important component of this is the financial component.

So an analysis of what are we what are we currently paying per resident for the all of the disposal we currently have.

And then what would be the projected cost of the same service levels under within the SWA?

So I think that's an important.

Those would be the answers that we'd be seeking at our meeting.

Exactly.

Okay.

So is that city manager or Brad?

Is that it's really going to be more just on the disposal component, what we're currently paying today as part of the ILA with the county versus what the SWA is proposing going forward.

It really doesn't have anything to do with our hauling agreement with waste management.

That's all stuff that we have through our own procurement.

This is just really focusing on the disposal component of things.

Okay.

I just want to be clear to that.

Because it really doesn't have anything to do with those other services.

Right.

That's great.

So just again, apples to apples, where are we now?

Totality of services, where would we be, totality of services, and broken down by service component, if that if that makes sense.

I understand what you're looking for, and we will give an Apple Staples comparison for disposal as to where we are versus what they're proposing.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

I I know that there is a long-term component to the SWA.

And I think the information that we have today is based on our uh existing uh level.

And so is it that the commission would want us to project out for the duration of the SWA, which I think is proposed at 40 years.

You know, we don't have information on our side as to what we think it's going to cost over our 40-year period.

Uh but that's something that we could try to make some assumptions on and share with the commission.

Yeah.

I think that would be very helpful.

And if I'm sure Sam and others would be helpful to, you know, give us as best information they have.

Okay, great.

Sure.

Thank you so much.

Oh, Sam, okay.

I'll be right back.

If you don't mind if I could add one thing in there, because you're asking about the um the rates.

Basically, right now, you know, um we're paying or all the cities are paying based on the um population base, and that's gonna be for FY26 and 27.

Um currently in FY27, Fort Lauderdale will be paying 229,000 dollars for all of the people that are in Fort Lauderdale.

It's gonna go to a tonnage-based, um, starting in FY28, uh, and it'll be FY28, 2930.

After that, it'll still be tonnage based, but it won't be built to the cities directly.

It will go right then to um through a solid waste authority.

But it'll be still based on tonnages.

And the tonnage-based rate is gonna go down from 229,000 to 143,000 to the residential units that are serviced.

The commercial will pay an additional amount also, they'll pay an additional amount based on it'll be um an eleven about eleven cents per cubic yard.

So if they have a four-yard dumpster that they're getting emptied twice a week, you're talking about eighty-eight cents more a week.

For the residential side, it's based on a um um a uh dollar rate per ton, which is starting out in FY28 will be $2.22 cents per ton, which equates to um about 143,000 overall for the residential units that are in Fort Lauderdale.

You have about 39,000 residential units in Fort Lauderdale, and therefore um dividing that out, it comes out to about and you pay by your solid waste um you pay your solid waste through your utility bill, so it comes out to about 31 cents per month.

That's what the addition is is 31 cents a month on the utility bill.

If you're paying um on a solid waste assessment, it would be about $3.60 based on the tonnages that you have right now in a city.

So that's that's what you're looking at as 31 cents a month for the resident per residential unit.

Thanks.

And that was uh part of that was my sense of why economies of scale could induce greater recycling as an example, because my sense, but I may be, you know, you please let me know, is that by having a lower cost, for example, of commercial recycling would further incentivize commercial recycling.

Correct.

You are which thus increases recycling.

You are 100 percent correct on that.

Okay.

100 percent.

All right.

Yes, thank you.

And we had that discussion, you know, with uh with all the providers, the haulers, uh, disposal facilities, everything about that, you know.

And and that's what's going to incentivize the commercial people.

And that's what we're trying to, that's what we're trying to achieve.

So they it makes sense for them to recycle, you know.

You don't want to make it work cost them more to recycle.

You want to make it work makes it cheaper to recycle.

Yep.

Yep.

So thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Any further questions or comments with regard to this item?

Okay, there being none.

Uh we'll move we're going to uh make some changes in the uh in this uh conference agenda because we seem to be running out of time and I don't want people to be sitting here expecting their item to be taken up and we're gonna probably have to defer to thank you, Commissioner, uh to another night.

So we're gonna take up we're going to CF1, we're going to defer to another meeting.

We'll take up business two.

Um business three, we're going to defer to another meeting.

Uh so those of you who have signed up to speak on business three, we're not going to be able to take it up tonight.

Uh City Manager, we said business four also we're taking up tonight.

We're taking up I'm recommending that business five and six be tabled until later this evening.

So that's five and six be uh later this evening, yes.

So we're gonna we're going to take two and four this afternoon, correct?

Yes, very good.

All right, I'm I apologize.

We're just running out of time.

So uh uh Chris Tzukowski and Ed Catalano we're gonna have to reschedule that item.

Okay.

Uh so moving on to business two presentation on charter revision ballot questions, city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor.

In the interest of time, I'll I'll tee up this uh matter to give you um a little summary of where we are for your uh for your um you'll recall that you had selected of the nearly 25 questions, uh 12 that you would like to see put into questions.

The team has put the 12 into five questions.

A packet was delivered to you, which would include a draft resolution and a the draft ordinance.

The draft resolution clearly shows the actual ballot questions that they'd be proposed.

And the ordinance also shows where uh the changes remain, a red line version version of the changes that would be implemented if you chose these.

This is five.

Um there's still a lot.

So uh you may want to consider what of any of them you would not want to pursue.

And then I'll have uh um Gabby Bush, Paul Ben Gell, and Anthony Pajardo uh here to make a presentation on that if you would like it or to answer any questions.

Sounds good.

So in looking at the resolution, which is um exhibit two, it lists the specific uh charter amendments that are going to be presented to the um to the public if they are approved tonight.

And um Paul, do you want to want to run through them?

Oh sorry.

Good afternoon, Paul Bangel City Attorney's Office.

Um we have uh consolidated several of the questions and we've come up with five proposed ballot questions as the city attorney mentioned.

I can go through them and tell you which sections are being addressed in each question if you would like to do that.

Well, why don't we go through the charter amendments themselves in the resolution?

The amendments themselves are in the ordinance.

Well, yes, we see that.

So um looking at the resolution, exhibit two, we see qualifications for eligibility to hold office, organizational meeting, and designation of vice mayor.

Should the city of Fort Lordale charter be amended to update the qualifications for the office of mayor and city commissioner and provide that elected officials assume office in the first regularly.

This is just changed the the date in which we we um takes take office, which is the meeting right after the November election.

So that's all number one is about, correct?

Yes, and also it addresses vice mayor.

Um the vice mayor is designated at that same meeting.

Right?

Yes, and annually thereafter instead of the meeting in the first meeting in April.

Right.

So are we all good with that, folks?

I think we all agree with that.

Okay.

Moving on to amendment number two, uh explain what that is.

So this adds uh that the that the city clerk receives the documentation of the candidates and does a ministerial review of them.

Um this eliminates the person the process of receiving affidavits alleging that a candidate for the office or of mayor or commissioner has violated the charter or is unqualified, and the the commission making a finding as to those allegations.

So the city commission is not the uh the um the authority that makes those decisions, right?

Correct.

Removes the city commission's authority to receive affidavits alleging that a candidate for officer mayor has violated the charter.

And and who where does that where does that responsibility rest?

Well, the discussion of the Charter Revision Board was that that is a matter for the courts and and some and anyone who would have a a complaint could could could file a complaint with the court.

Right.

Should that be in the actual language?

Uh the law would speak for itself.

I don't know that that would be necessary.

And also let's not forget that for the ballot questions, we only have 75 words.

Okay, so you can't add a phrase there to be otherwise determined by a court of competent jurisdiction.

We can see if something will fit, but I'm I'm just trying to eliminate ambiguity.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Question.

Um just going back, the overall purpose of this is to clean up and align our um Charter.

Charter with also with what is allowed in the state, correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm still, but I look at this, um, yes, it has been condensed, it's getting to the point, but I'm still as a layperson being just overwhelmed with what I'm seeing.

Is there no way for us to um say what we're changing with basically saying to be in alignment with the state requirements?

This is a when you get in a ballot box and you begin to read these things, the average person is gonna be they're gonna close down.

They're not gonna go and they're not necessarily gonna understand, and they may not even vote.

But if we can at least put the the language where it's um reader-friendly for the lack of a better term, but is there any way we could um come up with a verbiage that um would basically summarize to say what we're doing is in alignment with the state um is it law or legislation, whatever the alignment is that we could um write a statement like that?

Well, but you're assuming that the person knows what the state law is when you do something like that.

But most people will say, okay, the state is doing it, must be right.

I mean the first the first amendment is pretty clear what we're trying to do, right?

Is changing it from um from one date and and putting it instead of the question.

So we could go back to the first one, the first question?

Yeah.

Let's go back to the first question and let's kind of walk through it.

Should the City of Fort Laureal Charter be amended to update the qualifications of the officers of mayor and city commissioner and provide that elected officials assume office at the first regular commit City Commission meeting following certification of their election, and that a vice mayor be designated at the city commission's first meeting after all elected officials assume office following a regular municipal election and annually thereafter instead of at the first meeting in April Mayor?

Who's saying that?

Yes, Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Uh yes.

So one of the things that we were faced with is is a balance.

Right.

Because we're faced with seven limit of 75 words per question.

But on the other hand, if we separated them out more and added more explanation, it would it would increase the number of questions.

Because, for example, in question one, we've managed to consolidate four charter section changes into one question.

So if we were to separate it out any further, we could end up adding questions or going over the 75-word limit, which we cannot do.

So it was a very it was it's a difficult balance to come up with this.

And by the way, mayor, to to respond to something that you were asking before about stating the remedy in the courts.

That actually is existing language in the current in the current section, because there is already language in th in section 3.04 subject to a review by the courts.

So that part is not changing.

Okay.

Yeah, that's not underlined, it's not crossed out.

It's not changing.

Can't we also realize that we're going to have until November?

Um I think it will be our job, and then the Council of Fort Lorel Civic Associations and all the organizations to try and hopefully let people understand.

But we have six months to educate, right?

I know we can't take a position and we can't do that, but we can educate, right?

We can uh explain what we're doing and why, and then I guess the Council of Fort Little Civic Associations can do that.

But we can explain.

Explain.

Yeah.

Like like we we've been through that with the Parks Bond.

We did that with the police bond.

We're used to doing that kind of a campaign to make sure people understand what we're doing and why.

And I think that will just be our challenge.

Because we've already, I mean, we put all these here, we've discussed all these already, have we not?

But the but what Commissioner Beasley Pittman is saying is that this language to the casual reader, the person who is just reading this, these subject matter areas for the first time, it may not it may not, it doesn't give them any context for them to understand what they are voting on.

No, I I understand that.

And I guess Paul can tell us if there's a way to do that, but I still think that we have six months to educate.

So I I agree about the education part, but what we are my conversation, what we're having right now is to make sure what we are bringing forward to the average reader is something that is that they can comprehend, and it's not overwhelming, because again, we're talking about how many um ballot questions, how many are we bringing forward?

Uh what is it say here?

Five.

Five.

Okay.

And of course, you know, understanding it.

I I understand what has has been taken has taken place and what's being brought forward, but I see that there's an opportunity for us to make this a little tighter, not expanding more wording, understanding the 75 percent, but being able to present it where um 75 words.

75 words.

Yeah.

Where our our our residents to be able to grasp it, understand it, and be comfortable with what's being presented.

Because to me, this is still just to me, it's not a friendly read for me.

Mayor, may I offer a suggestion?

Well, you'll you'll remember that this is the our process, right?

So now we're we're going through them to determine whether you still want these five.

They were cobbled together from the twelve that you said you did want.

So these points are essential, the point you're making this evening, so that we can now go back and hone them in some way.

And I hear, and I completely understand that if they could be written perhaps more plainly.

Uh it's difficult, but but I think that is something that we will go back and do with all of them, uh, Commissioner.

I think that's essential.

So tonight you'll give us the opportunity of that feedback.

I hear is an overarching issue.

Let's make them read more plainly, please.

Uh, and and then secondarily, do you want all of them?

Would be some direction that we would like to have.

Uh and then, of course, um an education campaign would help.

When when you've decided finally which ones you want.

Okay.

All right.

Um, thank you.

Because that is the direction I'm going in.

So um, Mayor, we can continue to go through the five, but that's the point that I did want to go to the tape.

All right, very good.

All right.

Um Charter Amendment No.

Three.

Uh, should the City of Fort Laurie Charter be amended so that special meetings of the City Commission may be called upon at least 72 hours notice, except that in the event of an emergency where there is a potential for imminent harm or the ability to lessen or avert a catastrophe, special meeting of the city commission may be called upon such notice as is practical under circumstances.

Pretty straightforward.

Okay.

Charter 4.

Should the City of Fort L'Oreal Charter be amended to prescribe a method for resolving a tie in nominations to the Civil Service Board nominating committee, modify the composition of the election board that certifies the results of elections for the classified employees' recommendation for appointment to the Civil Service Board and remove Civil Service Board's duty to review, consider, and advise the city manager consider concerning job class specifications.

I don't know what this means.

I think it's a cleanup language, but uh but I I know what we were getting at.

So that's that.

And number five, should the City of Fort L'Oreal Charter be amended to delete references to primary elections?

And that we we all know.

We move the requirement of a two newspaper publications for public hearings and other types of notice and distinguish the title of interim city manager who was appointed in the event of the city manager's resignation or termination from that of acting city manager who was appointed during temporary absences of the city manager.

Again, a cleanup reference.

I have another question.

Yes, ma'am.

Um of these that we are looking at to do our cleanup, do any of these have an opportunity for um to be changed through our ordinance or resolution?

Does it uh we're at the point where everything that we're naming must go on the ballot just to kind of see what we can pull back to eliminate some of this?

The thing is the charters are constitutional, I know.

Right.

So anything that's already regulated by the charter, we could remove from the charter if you want.

But that but we can't do it as a commission.

It has to be done by uh by the uh the people move removing it.

In other words, if we wanted to re if we wanted to take out a section of the charter, it has to be done by popular vote.

We can't by we can't by ordinance um modify the charter.

Right.

Okay.

Mayor.

Yes.

To further answer Commissioner Beasley Pittman's question, also charter amendments.

The process is to adopt an ordinance, but the way the ordinance would work is that the sections of the ordinance changing the charter would not go into effect unless they're approved by the voters.

Right.

That's what I said to it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everything has to be approved by the voters when it comes to charter changes.

Just trying to avoid this understanding and avoid um voter fatigue with this.

If we are we are putting this out and we want the best results.

Well, that's why this that's why this hasn't been done in 20 years, because it's this arduous, very you know, cumbersome process to change the charter.

Especially with with um with question five, we were able to consolidate the the amendment of five different sections into one question.

Again, they can be separated.

I agree.

I agree.

I'm not, you know, what's being presented is is well done.

I'm just thinking at the other side of what our neighbors when they come to the ballot box.

Sure.

Not the work that's been presented.

No, I appreciate that.

And one thing, another thing that I wanted to add is that the ordinance amending the charter through the ballot process would be available in the clerk's office as soon as it's passed, obviously, and in advance.

Um so the the uh the plan is to have the ordinance on first reading at your next meeting.

So it would be available for the public, not only for the meeting, but between now and November also.

Anyone anyone can see what's being changed?

Is the county putting any questions on the ballot?

Do we know?

I don't know the answer to that.

All right.

All right.

Or the state.

Is the state doing anything to do that?

We don't know.

I think the state does.

No.

I think.

All right, we have a couple people who sign up to speak.

Um Mary, is she here still?

Mary Furtig, followed by Barbara Stern, followed by uh Maggie Hunt.

Anyone else wish to speak on this other than those three folks?

Okay.

Barbara, you want to come up first.

Sure, thank you.

Barbara Stern.

Um just want to say I'm glad some of this is being finally addressed, but it's a shame that we didn't start this two years ago since the all of these issues were brought before the commission two years ago.

And unfortunately, uh personal feelings intervened.

And uh they didn't go forward.

So here we are two years later, addressing ministerial matters versus something of substance and and and that's a shame.

I do want to bring up, I believe, the third set of amendments where it talks about qualifications.

It's confusing the way I read it.

Um great job consolidating, but the way I read it, it still says ultimately the commission would be the final say on qualifications.

Um and and I don't think that was the intent.

Maybe the second amendment.

You mean the second amendment?

Yeah, sorry, second amendment.

So it was a little confusing in the final wording.

I think that'll be hard for the general public if we have time to educate.

I there was some reference to the parks bond and what we did back then and the police headquarters bond.

Um I know consultants that have worked on campaigns got a contract to do some of that PR.

I hope that we don't go down that road for for this upcoming uh time to educate our voters.

It is a shame we are not tackling more substantive issues such as protecting our public lands.

Um it's a real shame that it it's going to be at least another two years, if not longer, before we do something of true meaning.

Um and with that, I will save my last 30 seconds because I know Mary Frederick has a statement, and I will in likely all likelihood join in everything uh Mary has to say because I know she's done a great job analyzing all of this.

Good afternoon.

Can you all hear me?

Yeah, we can hear that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Four weeks ago, I spoke with you on behalf of Lauderdale tomorrow regarding the charter amendments.

Our focus was on section eight and public lands.

We agreed with much of the language in the proposals, but made some suggestions for modifications that would protect our public lands.

While we noted that there were 26 proposed items in your presentation, we encouraged you to narrow this down and focus on public lands.

Well, you did narrow it down to twelve, and I see you've combined those to five and and Paul's done a great job.

But you specifically excluded all proposed amendments on public on this public lands section of our charter.

Two years ago, Lauderdale Tomorrow came forward to support the then revision charter board uh proposals to amend the city charter.

It was May, and you used the excuse that you did not have enough time to include the public in the conversation, even though members of the public had regularly attended the meetings and the proposals had been presented to the Council of Civic Associations.

After trashing your volunteers on the committee, you decided not to give the public a voice by not putting anything on the ballot.

Even though Commissioner Herbston, Commissioner uh Sturman made a valiant effort to just get the proposals on public lands on the ballot.

Still nothing.

Here we are two years later, we have a new revis charter revision board.

And again, you are declining to put forward the proposals to amend Section 8 on public lands.

This has been a 10-year journey for Lauderdale tomorrow, beginning with a petition as required by the Charter to support public purpose for public lands.

Why we ask ourselves, is it so hard to get anything on the ballot to protect our public lands?

But our hearts know the answers.

The short version, one-stop shop, Lockhart Stadium, Holiday Park, War Memorial, Snyder Park, the HMR, Fort Lauderdale Beach Park.

Oh, and I almost forgot the Hall of Fame.

I'm sure I've forgotten others.

I hope in two years we'll see something different.

And by the way, we get the message.

If we want it done, we better do it ourselves.

All right, thank you.

Hi, I definitely agree with everything Mary said.

I'd like to see the public lands portion put back in the charter.

And I know there's a lot of things that are going to be on the ballot for the charter.

And that's probably concern.

But this is so important.

Um these um portions that have been written about um preserving public property are great.

And um, for instance, the referendum on um uh having, you know, in order to sell uh something zoned parks, it's you got to have a referendum now instead of just uh being a majority or whatever it was.

Uh um but we have a the main thing is there's a lot of development pressure now.

And recently the county suggested um allowing affordable housing to go on parkland, which they backed off on, thank goodness.

But when you have things like that going on and so much development pressure, it's really necessary and and I to protect our public lands, even if it's a lot to put on the charter.

Thank you.

I mean on the ballot.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak on this item?

Okay.

There being none.

Uh so the city manager would like some direction from the commission.

Um we prepared to go forward with these items, and I guess a resolution is necessary, uh, city attorney to be able to go forward and put these on the ballot.

Um well, don't you're still looking for us to come back and refine them, are you not?

I mean, that was the plan that we get your and I and to Commissioner Beasley's point, we could probably make these things a little more plain.

That would be our goal to come back to you.

And next would be ordinance first reading and then second.

Okay.

Very good.

So, Mayor, uh, along the lines of what Mary said, and and I have to agree with her.

I I genuinely think that these ministerial things, while you know, nice to do are not necessarily that important.

Um I do think that the public lands thing that has come forward to us, both from the last charter review and from the current one, is probably the most important thing that we could do for our residents, and I would hope that we could reconsider and include that on this go-round.

I know obviously we have another shot at this again in two years.

But I think this is a truly a missed opportunity, and I would hope that the Commission would consider including that.

I I do think it is critical.

Um I do think it is one of the things that I've heard over and over and over again from you know folks in my in my district when when I have my meetings with them, they they talk about this, they talk about public lands and the desire of the residents to have you know more say in what goes on and for the just the process to reflect more of the intent and the will of the community.

So I would hope that we would consider that.

Thank you.

All right.

So to follow up with that, with those comments, let's just talk about that.

We don't have to we don't have to do anything on that, but I just want to see if I understand what is being said correctly.

So the recommendation from the Charter Board was to require public participation, public vote on the sale of uh of any public land.

Is that is that correct?

Who is here from the board?

Or does anyone have the exact language that's the same?

Is anyone have the exact language or distribute or I mean I want to recall what the language was.

That was a recommendation from the Charter.

If we don't if we don't have that, it's okay.

I'm not I don't mean to put you on the spot, but it keeps coming up, and I would like to know what was the exact recommendation from the Charter Revision Board regarding public lands.

Only if you know.

Well, I have the proposed revisions.

So, for example, sale or lease of city property to public bodies.

Um not to public bodies, but to non-public bodies.

That was that was one of them.

But okay, to non-public bodies.

I think that is the one they are most concerned about.

Okay.

Uh so that provide the proposal would have provided for any agreement for a term exceeding one year but not more than three would be pursuant to resolution adopted by the affirmative vote of at least four commissioners.

Uh-huh.

An agreement for a term exceeding three years but not more than ten would be would require a resolution with the affirmative vote of at least four commissioners.

When it says at least four, does that mean five, or does it mean four?

Four or five.

Well, that's not the answer.

If anything that says at least four means not four.

It means five.

I don't think that was the intent.

All right, so it's four then?

It means four.

Okay.

Mayor, I think it was intended to be a supermajority.

Correct.

But not a unanimous vote.

So I'll jump down to one of them is, yeah.

I'll jump down to so there's another there's another one exceeding ten years, but not more than fifty.

That's also four commissioners.

The next one, though, an agreement for a term exceeding fifty years would be unanimous affirmative vote of the entire city commission.

And then there are also other requirements that were being proposed.

For example, in that one, uh contain i it the resolution needed to contain a finding based on a fair market value analysis of the property and an evaluation of the qualifications of the private party prepared by a qualified independent consultant hired by the city at the private party's expense.

Um such use of the property would be in the city's best interest.

Those are things, those are uh requirements that the Charter Revision Board wanted to add.

Um in that tier.

Um it would include so it included in the City Commission's consideration shall be the consideration of a business viability report prepared again, prepared by a qualified independent consultant hired by the city at the private parties parties except so personally, you know, except for the five zero vote, because I don't think any commissioner should have veto power on any decisions of this commission, and that's that's what a five vote does.

It gives somebody a veto power.

The 4-0, excuse me, the 4-1 votes, you know, I I for sale or lease, right?

That's what it says.

This is well, it's it's actually more because it's lease agreements, license license agreements, concession agreements, facility use agreements, or other types of use agreements with private parties.

So it elaborated also on what types of agreements are covered in the this we're talking about Section 8.09.

I mean, personally, I I I think that there should be a high threshold of approval when it comes to the use or or the um or the the use or the um or the lease of public lands.

Uh I've never been against that.

I think it makes a lot of sense, but I don't believe in the 5-0 uh portion of that, because again, it gives a it gives one commissioner a veto power over it, and I don't think that should ever um ever we'll never be able to get anything moving forward.

So did you want to say something?

Yeah.

Um I agree with you, Mayor.

And I thought when we last talked about this, I thought the discussion was we were concerned about the total number of questions on the ballot, like not being overwhelming.

Um but if the if the commission is willing, I mean I think we should put everything we want on there all at once.

I think the voters can handle it.

And I agree with you about the supermajority for public lands.

I think that that makes sense.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

And I I think again, in terms of the yes, we have to pay more money for more questions to have on the ballot, but this is important and substantive, and we should we should do it in voting.

Unless the people voted up or down.

Yeah.

People can digest it, I think.

I agree.

But here's my concern.

Tell me.

We and this we do this a lot, whether it's this, whether it's city hall, name name a project, name something.

We meet, we discuss.

We we talked about what we wanted to put on the charter like a month ago, right?

Did this conversation come up a month ago when we decided what we wanted to do moving forward on the charter?

Did we talk about this?

We don't even have the language in front of us.

It hasn't been noticed to the public.

Everyone's you know concerned and I understand that, but it hasn't even been noticed to the public.

This was not part of this agenda item.

True.

So no one would even know that we were going to maybe just change it totally from what we talked about a month ago.

But we seem to have a habit of this.

And I don't know why as a commission we don't why do we always seem to have amnesia?

Or why do we always just like say, oh, why didn't we do that?

Like that's a good question.

Why didn't we do that?

Well, Commissioner, I think.

But it hasn't been noticed to the public.

And you're right.

And it just today is no final decision.

Right.

We're still a pro still a process.

Right.

Um maybe we can ask Paul to come back um with language for a charter amendment that incorporates what you have just described to us in a way that is 75 words or less that talks about public lands and and how we how we manage our public lands.

Um I think that gives the community a sense of um of a comfort level, knowing that you know, three people on this commission aren't going to you know dispose of of our public lands in a in a wholesale fashion.

I think that it does take maybe four votes on a commission to be able to do.

And we've had four votes.

I mean, inner Miami was five zero uh um memorials five zero.

So I mean most of these decisions that we have made have been supermajority anyway.

So I'm not I'm not really concerned about the ability to get supermajority and the and the and the things that Mary Fur trick talked about, you know, we had supermajorities on most of those things, on just about every of them, one of them, if I'm not mistaken, maybe one or two.

But all the big ones, we've we've had you know at least four votes on all of them.

So uh I'm not concerned personally, I'm not concerned about the impact that a four four a four uh four one uh vote might require.

But you know, but why don't you see if you can cobble together uh an amendment that incorporates uh the the spirit at least, if not the intent of what the Charter Revision Board has requested?

There are a couple of things that were, though.

Um I described one section, 8.09 and the the uh proposal to to amend it.

There was also 8.02 and there was also 8.21.

So from what I from what I'm seeing from the last meeting, I believe there were three sections in Article 8.

But maybe the clerk can help, though, because for the next meeting, we have to prepare the ordinance.

Yeah, which has the sections that would be changed if the questions are answered in the affirmative by the electors.

But the key though is advertising at least 10 days before passage.

Before the second reading I should say.

So I'm not sure we may have to advertise even if we advertise so called between first and second reading, I think it has to go to the press before first meeting.

I mean before first reading that makes it a little tricky because we won't know what really to put in the ad before first reading.

When is first reading?

May 19th.

And I believe we have to get it there may be some wiggle room there and maybe the clerk can help in terms of dates but I think we need to get it to the press before first reading even for advertising between first and second readings.

So I think Paul and City Clerk the timeline that we have in the backup with May 19th, June 2nd, June 8th and October 4th I know there was a little kerfuffle the editorial board of the Sun Sentinel said that we were wrong on these dates, compared us to Pembroke Pines, whatever.

I I disagree with that.

But are these dates set in stone the May 19th, June 2, June 8 and October 4 It really it really comes down to when it has to be at the supervisor of elections office.

Now the resolution the October date for the resolution that's a matter of our of the city charter the way it's written now a resolution calling a special special election has to be at least 30 days before the election.

So I mean that's almost a giveaway we can do that with the ordinances the resolution we can do them a lot sooner.

But is October 4th to November 3rd 30 days is it?

Whatever date was there I counted them.

Yeah.

Thank you.

But that can be much earlier.

But the key though is when the questions have to get to the supervisor of elections.

So for clarification when uh that article came out I did confirm with the supervisor elections that the questions do have to be submitted on June 8th.

Now up until August after the primaries when they finalize the ballot there can be some minor changes to the ballot question but the actual question itself has to be submitted to them on June 8th.

So we were correct the Sun Sentinel is incorrect.

Well they say we had much longer than June 8 is June 8th deadline is June 8th to submit the questions so that they can start the review of them and they said that up until I don't remember this specific specific date in August but we minor changes could be made to the questions if necessary.

Okay so why don't we can I can I can I answer just one section because my conversation was June 8th is for submittal of a draft language so that they can make sure that there's nothing ostensibly wrong with it.

And if we don't submit it until August will whatever we submit by August is going to be final right wrong or indifferent.

So that's the message I got from the SOE is that June 8th is for submittal of a draft so it gives them time to review it and if we need to make changes to it we have up until August.

And that August date is August 18th.

August 18th yes I understand the June 8th is the middle of a of a draft which then allows time for revision to get it correct by the so that the final version is due by August 18th.

That's my understanding why didn't the Camp say draft why does the CAM say June 8th deadline for the City Clerk's office to submit the adopted ballot questions to the supervisor of elections.

I didn't know that it could be a draft and June and August 18th is our first meeting back from the we don't have that we don't have that in front of us today.

The communication I saw from the supervisor of election to the city clerk was that the working deadline is June 8th and that the final deadline is August 18th.

But I think when it comes to final and the it couldn't be different questions it could the draft questions they call draft it's if we need to make tweaks to the questions we're submitting.

So that's my understanding.

Okay.

So how about this?

How about we wait till city manager is ready.

How do you do it in May 19th how about we ask the supervisor of election if June 19th if we could submit questions on June 19th I I think we did inquire with them about the schedule.

I don't know if we gave them David you can eight days opine.

I I did not officially ask for an extension but I certainly can I I think the supervisor will be amenable to that is my guess.

Paul, more importantly, how do we get around the what you said about publication for the before the May 19th first reading of the ordinance?

Right.

There may be some wiggle room.

Maybe we can get it to the press the day after the meeting of first reading.

I that is I'll have to check the schedule to see if I I'll let you know.

So yeah, so I regret saying this, but special meeting.

Well, again, I I would just urge all of us to try and flesh out these kinds of questions and thoughts when we first have these discussions like a month ago, so we don't find ourselves in a situation where you don't even know if we can public publish this in time for our first reading on May 19th.

I just I don't I just don't know why we always do these after-the-fact things, that's all.

Okay, you're at your point is well taken, and uh um but the the the reality is I think there's a sense in this commission that we'd like we would like to see a ballot measure on their concerning public lands.

So see what you can do to put together a language so that by our next and and use it and use that draft language in the publication of notice, okay?

And then if we need to tweak it, we'll do it at the meeting.

I think we're allowed to do that.

And I know we're allowed to do that.

Well, we have to get the title of the Yeah, we'll figure if you can figure that out on the next few days, and then at least we have something the public's aware of, so that our first reading will will be able to uh craft the final language.

But I think you understand the sense of the commission now of what we're looking for.

And actually, once we get it to the press, there's some legal room in making revisions before it's actually published, I believe.

But the other I uh the other thing is though, so we discussed 8.09, the leasing and sale to private parties, but do you want me to come up with questions or try to consolidate them all into one regarding the other two sections that were recommended, or only that 8.09?

I guess that's another thing we need some direction on.

I think everything, Mayor.

Let's just this is you know a rare opportunity for us to get everything moving forward.

Right.

So you so repeat your question again?

So there are there were three sections that they recommended for a revision.

There's sale of public lands and public property to public bodies.

There were some revisions there.

And the 8.09, which I discussed, and the third one is dispos is uh actually park property.

There's a re proposed revision to 8.21.

So should I try to incorporate them all?

You're not going to be able to incorporate them into one and have them make sense.

You may have to do you may have to divide it up into two.

And that's my question.

I think divide which in whatever means is most easily understood by voters.

And if that's few questions or there's a consolidation, we've we've been tossing around these questions for many, many years.

So I think we should finally put on the ballot.

People approve it, they approve it.

If they don't approve it, they don't approve it.

So if you could push put something together, I think the commission would appreciate that.

And mayor, I just say if I think if we have to have a special meeting to make this all work, we should have a special meeting.

I mean, just to uh uh we might not need to, but let's let's move forward.

Yeah, I don't think if we need I don't think we will, but thank you so much.

Sorry, Paul.

All right.

Um, all right, so um we're gonna skip business three, business four, conceptual site plan for the Fort L'Oreal Beach Park project.

We have about 20 people who sign up to speak.

We're never gonna finish this by the uh by the end of this meeting.

Um City City Manager, what do you want to do?

I mean you scheduled all these things.

I just want to I don't want to frustrate your I did not realize that the reports would take as much time as as they did, but uh I we are prepared to provide the presentation, Mayor, whatever is the will of the commission.

All right, so let's do the start the presentation see how far.

We got it quit in about 20 minutes, so um and then we're gonna have to continue it into the evening meeting.

So um Quentin.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Quentin Pew, Assistant City Manager coming before you is a revised conceptual site plan for Fort Lauderdale Beach Park.

This item returns to you following the December 16, 2025 uh deferral, which direct the staff to continue discussions with the Bohemar Community Development District.

I will briefly cover the project history, proposed scope, uh financials.

Michael Gerhart from EDSA will come up and walk through the conceptual site plan.

And ultimately, staff is seeking commission feedback and general consensus that the proposed site plan reflects your direction before we advance to design development.

The Parse Bond program earmarked 1.3 million dollars for Fort Lauderdale Beach Park improvements in 2019.

Fast forward to January 2024, the city executed an interlocal agreement with the Bahia Mar Community Development District.

That agreement provides up to one million dollars for eligible improvements, including the conversion of basketball courts to pickleball courts.

In 2025, multiple site plan alternatives, which were funded through the Parks Bond program, were presented that included relocating the basketball courts as well as incorporating pickleball courts at the current basketball site.

In December 2025, the resolution to proceed with site plan alternative 1A was deferred for further dialogue with the Bahia Mara Community Development District or CDD.

Since then, staff has engaged in continuous dialogue with both the developer and the CDD regarding retaining the basketball courts in their current location and pursuing an amendment to the interlocal agreement.

Consistent with how the city regularly leverages grants, donations, and other outside contributions to stretch the public dollars.

And in an effort to preserve park bond funding, the developer offered to cover the costs for producing this conceptual site plan for city commission feedback.

Proposed improvements until resurfacing and retaining the existing basketball courts in their current location, four new pickleball courts with lighting, new outdoor fitness equipment, roughly 5,000 square feet of synthetic turf for passive use, landscaping, new site amenities such as benches, picnic tables, barbecue grills, bike racks, signage, and waste receptacles.

Not part of this plan, but other elements were discussed during the discussions, such as beverage and food concessions, uh storage under the Bahia Marge, uh, shade structures uh came up during discussions, but also not reflected again in today's high-level conceptual uh site plan.

Staff can bring those bring back those items further for consideration by the commission if you would like to explore them.

Currently, project funding includes 1.3 million dollars from the parks bond program and up to one million dollars from CDD contributions.

The opinion of probable costs is approximately 2.5 million dollars.

Options for closing the funding gap include pursuing external funding opportunities, refining pricing and the design, um, or even as far as evaluating value engineering opportunities to close the funding gap.

Again, staff is seeking commission feedback and general consensus on the conceptual site plan.

City staff is also working on extending the interlocal agreement with the CDD ahead of the January 2027 expiration.

We are targeting and bringing back an amendment for your approval no later than July 2nd, 2026.

From there, the project follows an estimated standard delivery sequence from design development to construction, all in.

We're looking at an estimated 35 to 40 months for uh from today's directions to anticipated substantial completion.

To walk you through the conceptual site plan, I will now turn it over to Michael Gayhart, uh Vice President of EDSA.

Thanks, Quentin.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners.

As Quentin had noted, Michael Gayhart, landscape architect uh here in the state of Florida.

Uh working alongside with some of my partners and colleagues at EDSA.

We are a global planning and landscape urban design firm with headquarters based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Uh, actually going 66 years strong.

So that shows a true testament to the time and really seeing how the city has evolved and we're really vested in and in projects in the community and making sure what's put forth actually works for everyone.

So, with that being said, uh, I get to flip through a handful of uh pretty pictures and conceptual design layouts um for this proposed amenity for the public.

What a good good picture.

Um, this one of my favorite uh pictures, just understanding the the beach and the great asset that we have as a city.

Uh all these wonderful public amenities that are sprinkled from the north all the way down to the south.

And really what we're here to talk about today is how we can further bolster our our public amenity package and offerings along such a strong asset that we have as a city.

So as you know, we have the Bonnet House up north, Hugh Birch Tate State Gardens, Los Olas Oceanside Park, DC Lakesander Park, big brother, little sister to it, and then also again really providing a strong southern anchor, a really nice activated public amenity space.

So this proposal uh as briefly mentioned is looking at maintaining uh the two existing basketball courts, but fully refurbishing them.

Brand new surface material, brand new backboards, rims, nets, and really just enhancing the character, but preserving their location and their identity of where it is.

We understand that it has a very, very deep history uh for the city, and it's truly something special that we want to make sure that we do celebrate.

And how can we elevate it going forward at the same time?

Another asset to this proposal is putting forth additional recreational amenities, but not just necessarily sprinkling them out throughout the city haphazardly, but really consolidating them and making it a feature to where people can gather and actually recreate and socialize together.

Uh additional offerings that we're looking at doing is having a dedicated fitness area and zone, as we know that there is existing fitness equipment that's on the beach right now, currently.

Um it does need to get a little bit elevated, I would say.

It's a little bit dated, and I think part of this proposal would look at elevating that fitness zone and the actual equipment that's located on the site.

So the current site plan, uh as all many of you are aware, uh, it's positioned uh directly east of the Bahia Mar property.

Uh there is the pedestrian bridge that kind of since central to that with the basketball courts just positioned to the north.

Um, we really felt like there was a strong opportunity to play off the basketball court's position and also that central kind of node is a central plaza feature that can really anchor the space, and that's the opening kind of the welcome plaza that really sits nicely dedicated right in the center, still maintaining beach access.

So it is a public park, and we want to have the the public out there.

We want to draw in the public, the community, let them utilize the space and actually provide something that is something special for the city.

To the south would be the proposed new four pickleball courts that would be enclosed, so they'd be fenced off, and so there would be some control within there to where balls are not flying.

I would like to say another very important piece to the puzzle too.

Would how can we create a space but elevate it and elevate the landscape and the ecological renourishment and protecting and introducing a new dune within that zone?

So it's providing public space, but then also being you know conscious of the environment and stewards of the environment when we're looking at this space.

Where are the exercise um where's the exercise component?

So and just south of the the four pickleball courts, there's a dedicated fitness zone.

Right now, it's just a uh open space.

That's where it would be programmed to go.

Outdoor gym.

Outdoor gym.

Yeah, okay.

And I would like to also point out that the existing barbecue area that's that stays intact.

We're we're still integrating that.

We want to extend the canopy, the tree canopy that's over there, and actually bring that north.

And so it's a system, it's not just sprinkled pieces, but it's a connected, cohesive park space to where people can actually circulate and utilize the whole entire park.

Please, please, please please have some respect for this speaker.

Thank you.

So can you can you go back to that?

Sure.

Um questions.

So the flex lawn.

So flex lawn, we are, and like some of the parks that you see, like up in Pompano, for instance, right?

They have uh turf grass that's out there.

And there's a mixture between synthetic and real turf grass, all the way along that whole stretch of beach.

What we would like to do is it says flex lawn, but that space, again, it's it's a uh a passive open space to where families can utilize it.

Um, whether you know you're a little bit more advantageous, and that's where you practice sunrise or sunset yoga or Tai Chi or what have you.

Um you can picnic out there.

The it's meant to again be that kind of knuckle or that node right in the central that bridges you know the north and the south spaces together.

So is that real grass or fake grass?

We're proposing it as a synthetic.

Fake.

Okay.

So I'd uh I don't think there's at least from mine areas not a lot of interest for fake grass there.

Understood.

That's totally fine.

So could real grass be there?

It could.

I mean seashore past bellum uh maintenance, right?

And so when you say fake grass, yeah, fake grass, it has a stigma or connotation that it's like uh gonna degrade, right?

The environment.

It still percolates, it still drains, okay.

It minimizes the the maintenance and the operations that it takes to actually upkeep real grass, right?

And so excuse me.

Stop the moans and groans.

You have your chance to speak, sign up.

We this is this is childish, all right?

Go ahead.

Totally fine.

No, it's not totally.

It's a contentious I understand it's contentious project, but it has its place, you know, it's a very controlled kind of environment.

We're not being, you know, non-ecosensitive.

Let me ask you something about spreading.

Of course you can.

Okay.

Beachfront properties along the whole coast.

So we just so grass can grow on sand.

It does, but then you've got to think about the additional irrigation requirements that it takes to maintain the the operations, the maintenance, the fertilizers, the mowing, you know, it's like you say fake grass, but it it there's two sides to the coin, right?

So could that thank you?

Could that just be sand?

Sure, but who wants to like sit?

I mean, everyone can sit on the sand just doing the in the front, but at the same time, it's a little bit different to you know, roll out a blanket, you're covered in shade, you got more additional shade canopy on there.

You're controlled.

Um sometimes it's easier to access, right?

So when we talk about all-inclusive accessibility, um, you know, you could literally take you know, people that need assistance can get to that space a lot easier and still partake in those opportunities that they may not be as easily be able to on the sand itself.

But yes, so it could be regular grass, real grass, it could be crazy.

For sure.

Okay.

The um outdoor gym, could that so right now the outdoor trim is just south of the basketball courts, I think.

Just right.

So could the outdoor gym remain where it is in that general location?

So right now, just south of the and it if you look at the size, right?

They're both kind of illustrated in that tannish kind of color, right?

And roughly they're approximately around the same size.

Short answer to your question: can there be fitness equipment over there?

Of course there can be fitness equipment over there.

Can it be, you know, a network of stations that are around the park?

Of course there can be.

We're just looking at what was there historically and how we can put something back that's a little bit more future forward, I would say, than you know, the status quo of 1980 or pre-that whenever it was put in.

Right.

So you could update the fitness equipment but keep it where it is, if sure.

Yeah, okay.

Um trees, talk to me.

So, how many additional trees would we put in?

Love them, love them.

And we actually extracted some of the more technical information that was on there.

But what we would obviously like to do is incorporate indigenous plant material that's of its place.

You know, we have cocos, we have sables, sables our state palm that's gonna go in there, sea grapes, uh, native grasses, and really try to bring back that dunescape that we don't have, frankly, right there.

And how many trees would that be?

Or do you have if maybe you don't know?

Off the top of my head, um I would I would say probably close to 80.

Yeah.

The and just for clarity, the um picnic area we've got the grills, the benches, and those um great pines.

That's that all would be unaffected by this.

Is that in effect, yeah.

We so when we were doing the concept layout of the plan, we were definitely conscious of existing conditions.

You got the restro restroom that's just south, right?

Right.

You got the barbecue areas, the pines that are in there, which some are maybe invasive, but that's another topic of discussion.

Um the portals and how it all works with existing openings and access to the park space is something that we considered when we laid this out.

Okay, and this maybe this is for Quentin, but the there's a playground just farther south, a little bit farther south that's unaffected, and I think we're that's part of one of the improvements we're working on is the playground.

And I think we're that's part of one of the improvements we're working on is the playground.

Is that right, Quentin?

That is that is correct.

Part of the parks bond portion of the funding.

Playground is incorporated into that portion of it.

But on this particular plan, you wouldn't see it.

Right, because it's farther.

I also want to clarify that the barbecue grills and picnic tables.

Um, as you are probably aware, they're not fixed elements.

Right.

Um, they're constantly being relocated on the beach.

And those pickleball courts, while there are some picnic tables in that area, they will be likely shifted or whatever it may be as they are done today.

When a family comes to uh picnic at the beach.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Sorry, uh those questions for right now.

Thanks.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

And a lot of the rest of the presentation is just more visuals that help further elaborate and explain about what we're we're talking about right now.

Just a handful of series of character images all over the place from landscape doing restoration, uh design vernacular and architecture.

You know, you got the wave wall, the Fort Lauderdale Beach, which our company probably was part of.

Um, but we're we're very conscious about how this all works together.

Again, not just as a one-off, but what is the system of Fort Lauderdale Beach as a whole?

Okay.

Sorry, can you go back one?

I just, and this might be for city manager or car all, I'm not sure, uh, city manager.

The uh concessions, the allowing, you know, certain parts of the beach, we allow hotels and so forth to have beach chairs, and so walk me through where that would be allowed, or does this change that, or what is that look like?

I'm gonna ask Carl to come forward.

Good afternoon.

Uh Carl Williams Parks and Recreation Director.

So are you referring to our current agreement that we have now to allow food beverage and alcohol throughout the beach?

Those are located more so on the north end there, where you get um your hotels where we have like the W and some of those hotels that we have there along that uh path there that do allow that we do allow to have that service there in the beach area.

I think what the Vice is asking though is does Behemar, excuse me, or the St.

Regis intend to have beachside concession uh uh across from their across from their property onto the beach, because we don't see it incorporated in this design.

Is it is that still contemplated?

Because I've seen previous renderings that there was a suggestion for that, and now I'm not seeing that.

So I have heard that, but I I can't answer that.

But it's not part of this design, correct.

Okay.

And yeah, thanks, Mary, exactly.

And and what if that I just I don't I don't know the ordinance allowance for that.

Like in other words, could they have that if they wanted it in this eastern part?

Do you do you know?

So I believe it can.

I don't believe the ordinance would prevent us from allowing it, but it would be an item that would come before you to be added as part of that.

So that doesn't have any connection to this.

I mean, we would be able to decide separately.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And I guess there's a handful of you know, more comments that I can go on and on about this about why it's programmed the way that it is, but being space spatial conscious, right?

And understanding that cross-section of the space, making sure it's not exaggerated too far.

Um, just as a landscape architect, I you know, I would want us to extend it, but there's a practicality bond, you know, what we're working with right now.

So making sure that it is kind of a true tried-tested park space that works.

All right.

Um just images, so some of that flex lawn that you can see again, you know, creating different pockets and microclimates that have more of that shade, usable type seating to where you know a family can go in there, and so it is passive and active space that we're promoting.

Um, some of the new fitness equipment.

Again, you know, right now you kind of have that um old school metal kind of rail on there, but we're looking at again being future forward.

What is the next kind of identity of our beach park that we can be proud of and show off really and making sure that community can utilize the space.

And then finally, um the the landscape, you know, really the dune.

Uh you can see how much dune we're trying to bring in here to actually you know restore some of the ecosystem that's on there, and it's doing a two-fold type job.

Not only is it good for the environment, but it's also protecting the park space.

I know there's probably concern about the activity or the um what happens or the hard court surfaces being blown with sand, but we're utilizing again these dune type systems to create these microclimates that will keep the sand to the best of its ability off of the courts, not only for the pickleball courts, but also for the northern basketball courts too.

It's not just gonna be you know three small pockets of dune, but a system that all works together and it has movement to it like the environment does.

This last image really just shows that you know we're promoting this inner interconnected system, okay?

It has hard pack sand pathways that are all through there, so you can easily meander from north to the south of the space.

People can jog, they can walk, but it's all connected through you know walkable lap uh landscape.

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much.

Do you have any further comments, Quentin?

No, sir.

Okay.

So uh there are a number of people who sign up to speak.

So let me ask the commission.

It's uh now 5 30, and I know we want to take a break.

Um, you know, we can begin some of the uh some of the public comment.

I've got about 20 people who sign up to speak, but it's gonna end up spilling over into our evening meeting.

Um what do we recommend?

How are we gonna move forward on this?

Mayor, do we are we having the uh executive session today?

Is that we we plan for that during the we can probably eat hospitality executive session?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, we could probably have we could probably uh we can probably do both.

Okay.

So we do need to have our executive session though.

Is that so if we're gonna have that and we're still gonna start at six o'clock for the commission meeting?

All right, so folks, we're gonna have to resume the evening meeting.

We'll begin at 6 15.

We'll do the presentations, we'll do the uh consent agenda, and then we'll get back to this.

That makes sense.

All right.

All right, so this meeting is I'm sorry.

I can't hear a word you're saying.

I'm old and deaf.

Approximate time?

Um I would say about 6 30.

So maybe later.

All right, quarter to seven.

We'll pick this up at quarter to seven.

Well, we're gonna do just the presentations and the consent agenda and and the pledge of allegiance.

Okay.

We'll be back.