We're gonna wait to get our on air signal.

Here in the city of Hollywood.

Today is Wednesday, November nineteenth, twenty twenty five.

And uh, just a few days away from our big centennial finale.

Um and so welcome to today's meeting.

Uh today's a joint special commission and CRA meeting.

Uh the reason why it is a joint meeting is because our uh city manager, of course, is also serving as a CRA director.

Um so we've got three items on our regular agenda.

Uh let's please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

One nation under God, independent with liberty and justice for all.

All right, thank you.

Uh we've got a cozy environment here in uh room uh 215.

Seems very laid back.

And so, Clerk, let's uh call the roll.

Commissioner Fernandez.

Here.

Commissioner Kalari.

Here, Commissioner Grober.

Here.

Commissioner Beterman.

Here.

Here.

Here.

All right, great.

Well, we're all here, uh, and we have three items on the regular agenda.

As we all know, uh, on an annual basis, the city commission has an opportunity to hear from the uh city attorney and city manager and CRA director of the three uh offices uh which we uh hire and appoint uh the persons who will uh perform those duties for us.

Uh and each year during this time we have an opportunity to uh hear from them about their accomplishments, about uh the status of uh the operation that they oversee and discuss any amendments uh to the employment agreements between city manager, city attorney, CRA director.

Uh sometimes they'll uh offer their impression um on any amendments that they're interested in so we can understand uh because it is a two-way street with uh with them.

Um and so uh our first item, item number three is a resolution of the city commission authorizing the city to consider uh and and execute an amendment to the employment agreement between the city and the city manager.

So I'd like to invite the city manager to uh to uh discuss his uh impression of today's uh today's review.

Uh obviously we all are in possession of his uh annual uh evaluation letter and the book lit of citywide accomplishments.

Uh George.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good morning, and uh Vice Mayor and Commissioners and to all the members of the staff and public that are here and and perhaps watching out there.

I uh first of all, I I really want to start with a uh a sincere thank you because when you when you look through the accomplishments book and the uh the development, the latest development activity report, the level and the um the the height at which some of the uh areas of activity have reached and are continuing to be um enjoyed is is really remarkable and it's it's truly the most active period probably since um the original initiation and founding of this city.

Um and a big thank you goes to a collective effort to make that happen because you've got to really have all the different elements and all the different players on board uh on the same northbound train to keep that kind of of activity going at the kind of level that it's going at right now.

Um that includes all of you uh as elected officials for the the leadership support and then the conviction to make some tough decisions along the way.

The uh folks in this room uh who are part of the 1,533 full-time positions, plus part-timers, plus contractors, because it takes a lot of effort to make a lot of this happen and then to keep it going, and the public support and cooperation, so many different things, especially uh, you know, going back with the bond issue adoption and and moving forward.

Um literally the this past year, there have been things that have moved forward and been adopted or initiated that this city hasn't addressed for decades and taken on when I think about the stormwater master plan and beginning implementation of that.

A huge, huge initiative that's not only been needed for some time, but is obviously now necessary and and not a choice.

The septic to sewer program finally getting focus on that, and I know we still have another workshop and and formal adoption, but to get some consensus on that on how to move forward and actually start that happening.

Um the uh the uh the transition and the uh consolidation back within the city of the CRA with the the downtown and beach districts.

And let's let's face it, the the downtown and the beach were always special places of the city before they became CRA districts.

They were part of the city, they still are, they always will be.

And it's just we're just kind of uh incorporating normalizing that kind of operational organizational setup right now, and unfortunately that's been going well.

And unfortunately that's been going well.

Initiation of the the Washington Park Industrial Area uh redevelopment program, that's something that's been looked at and talked about for years, and it's actually moving forward and happening now.

Um so that along obviously we can list a lot of things.

I don't want to do that and be tedious with that in a lot of detail in here that um very happy and proud for the city of.

But when you look at even through the labor contract process, of which we still um have to finish up with the IFF to be able to accomplish some major uh pension reforms in terms of the defined benefit and going to an option of defined contributions.

That was something that had been thought about for years, and yet now it's been able to happen, and that takes everybody's participation and cooperation, and quite frankly, having the courage to vote to make things like that happen too, which haven't always been very popular.

But we've reached a point in time now where the employees' priorities and interests regarding that have kind of matched up with some of the needs and some of the the change for the future that that's happened as well, too.

Um just looking through some of the other you know highlights here from the um the obviously the continued implementation of the Acela permitting software, obviously a long way still to go with that, but um and improvements to be made there.

But that's you know, largely moving forward too.

Uh we have, and we really didn't make any uh big announcement about it, but uh we'll be bringing you a little bit of a white paper on it soon.

We have a successfully acquired and have already started implementing our asset property management software, Trimble, used to be called City Works and now called Trimble.

So that's already happening and starting to.

That's something we've needed for a long time and and talked about for a long time, but it's it's happening now.

So happy to see those things pushing along.