Good evening. I am calling to order the City of South Miami City Commission for Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024. Our mayor is running a tad bit late, so we are going to get started without him. Members of the public, you may join via Zoom. Everyone here, please silence or turn off your cell phones so that we are not interrupted while we are working. Can we please call the rule? Yes, Mayor Fernandez? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I said I'm going to be here. I wish to leave me. Present. Commissioner Corrie. Present. Commissioner Callie. Here. You have a quorum. Thank you. If we could please stand up for a moment of silence Commissioner Kayak, can you please lead us in the pledge the . . . . . . Do we want to wait for the mayor? Do we have a preference? Mr. City manager, do you have a preference? I do not up to the will aboard. Okay. How about you guys would you like to see it? No, I think I think the presentation should be fine. Okay, perfect if we could have the first one which is the sunset drive landscape project from 60 seconds to 69th Avenue with Mr. Audeio Garminantes? I'll introduce the topic in discussing potential capital projects and looking at the category of landscaping. Commissioner Cory had some time ago mentioned a landscaping project potentially for the median sunset drive, a 62 avenue to our city border, roughly 69th avenue. I didn't really comprehend that in fact there was a project that had been designed at one time that came to the previous commission of which the project had two components landscaping and a realignment of 62 avenue and sunset drive. The only thing that went forward at the time was the realignment and the landscaping did not So once I became familiar with is what we brought forward is just basically to introduce a Project that the city had worked on before that had some designs and some elements To see what kind of interest this commission may have to consider these improvements that would go between 6 to have and 6 9 F. And if there is an interest then we would fine-tune the project and obviously it would come back to you anyway. But I just want to gauge interest before we spent more time, energy and money potentially on it. Commissioner Corey had talked about putting some funding in our C-Program, CIP program regarding this, but I just never really connected that it was an actual project that had already been designed and actually went to commission at some point prior to this commission or commission Lehman was a part of it. So we wanted to introduce it briefly and just get some input from you and then we would do further work on it as you direct. Thank you. Hi, good evening. So basically going back to what the manager is doing. Back in 2020 we saw this for a landscape and a roadway alignment project, other way from US1 to half of a 69th avenue. The project came back and it had three options and the option that was approved by the Mayor Commission was the option between 60th Second Avenue and US1, which is the railway alignment portion between 60th second and 61th Court, and a small section of landscape on the median between 60th Second Avenue again and 61 court. The project pretty much back then consisted of harmonizing with the US one corridor based on the landscaping Plants that were planted at that project And we also our task to remove the existing black olives In total we were removing 22 existing small pounds six small pounds 41 Montgomery pounds planting 38 new trees and then approximately 14,000 shrubs and ground cover. I'm going to have here the Alaska Parkes Tech will design the project out so you can get into the quantities and type of trees and shrubs that we're proposing. Good evening. My name is Kiel Semler. I'm a landscape architect with GSLA design. type of trees and troughs that we were proposing. Good evening, my name's Keel Semler. I'm a landscape architect with GSLA design. We were tasked with this project back in 2020. I think I may be starting 2018 even. But at the time, the directive from the city was to remove the black olives along US one. As you know, we've been out there. There's the large mature trees that are there, because the idea was to, even though they're mature, the idea was to match the U.S. 1 corridor, so there was, you know, oaks and the shrub material that they used there. I think that project had just completed recently before we started this. So there was black olives, pink tabbouillas. There's some Chinese fan palms, solitaire palms, a number of different species for removal. We had a bunch that we were going to transplant, Montgomery palms, there's some stache palm saples. This is basically just a playlist of all the new trees and shrubs we were planting at the time. Mets of mostly natives, a couple Xeric species in there as well. new trees and shrubs we were planting at the time. Most of mostly natives, couple Xeric species in there as well, but this plant list was basically derived from that US1 project. Just images of the shrubs and ground covers. Obviously the sunset is, you know, there's turn lanes and intersections everywhere, so everything is pretty much low material. As you get close to the ends of the median, but the center of the median's had some cocaplon, sawp on my dough, things that get a little taller. More images of that stuff. Estimated project cost was like 276,000. It's like 2020 prices, which obviously we know have changed since then. So there's a maintenance cost for that. That's what's described there. We probably just calculated in 2020 as well. That was a maintenance cost that we requested our current landscaping maintenance company to provide us a cost for what it would cost to maintain this type of project. And that was 2024 numbers, correct? Yeah, that was June of 2024. Excuse me on that. And something that we've been discussing internally is to sort of relook at the project that was proposed at the time, come up with an alternate. Something that we've noticed, there's been kind of two things. One was after the US one plants were installed. It was right after that we took this over and started this. So we hadn't seen what survived versus what struggled out there. So some of the plant materials we would like to, if we can, change up to make sure we use the stuff that thrived and not the stuff that didn't make it or stuff that was a maintenance heading. Another thing that I wanted to discuss was kind of the directive of removing the existing trees to plant the trees that were along US1. Something I would like to do, I guess I'm a little bit like the Lorax here, I'm speaking for the trees. But the black olives, we all know if they stain and you don't want one over your car driveway. However, in a median, there's landscape underneath and the asphalt is black. So they're native tree, they don't really pose any issues. And what's out there now, they're large mature, they provide shade. So, and I know from experience, unfortunately, for projects I've done, neighbors and residents don't like it when big trees get removed. Fortunately, I've had to do that before, but it's always trouble. So, I want to kind of propose to you guys to maybe, if we can go back and rethink that and maybe keep some of that material and introduce shrubs and other things from US one that will obviously complement that but I think keeping the existing mature canopy would be you know a nice thing to do and it's you know the way the realignment has been done it's not like we're damaging them or can hurt the most of them can stay so anyway that's just a point of discussion that we and it would like to see happen but you but it's changed since we initially did this, but just food for thought. So the next step is once mayor and commission make a the provide us a direction on what changes we want to make to the existing plans. We'll go ahead and proceed with that. We would need to request a redesign from our landscape architect firm and a cost proposal for that. And then that will come back to you all for approval. Once the design is complete, we're estimating three months. Two to three months maybe for redesigning the project, we'll put it out for solicitations and construction solicitations. And then once we receive the bits, we'll provide the lowest bit for recommendation to construct the project. So that's pretty much the timeline. What's next on the project? Thank you. I have a question and I don't know if it's a new question or a new question. We have been working on trying to get an RFP for a landscape architect to be our landscape architect so that we can redo the vision for the entire city. I wonder if it's not prudent to have this weight for that so this doesn't stand alone outside of whatever we decide as a city is going to be the look as it relates to trees and shrubbery and all of that. I look to you, Mr. City Manager, because you're the one I had the most recent conversation with. Correct. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You are correct and we currently do have an RFP out for a landscape master plan. And notwithstanding, we were looking for opportunities that we may do some very sort of specific improvements that could start before then just because that may take a while. And some of that may be in general. It may not necessarily be all site specific. It would be like the type of plant material we would wanna use in certain locations. So it necessarily be all site specific. It would be like the type of plant material we would want to use in certain locations. So it could be an approach. It could be, you know, we hold and wait. But given that that I, you know, once I understood that this project had been designed and had gone to that extent, I wanted to bring that option. We've had a similar conversation that relates to what I'll call our two parkways, 80, 84 84 Street and 53rd. Both of those are little different element because they're kind of like a linear park. And we tried to look at potentially, we have requested proposal on what it would take to maybe take a look at those and design something for those two particular parkways. Outside of the great master plan, just because A, it could take a while and B, it may be in general. So obviously whatever we would do, we wanna have some synergy between them, but notwithstanding it could be an approach that we hold off and wait for that process to make sure if you want to. Thank you. Do any of you have any questions for the gentleman? Sure, and thank you so much for giving the presentation. Thank you so much for coming back out after all of these years. I'm very interested in potentially beautifying sunset drive. It's that entrance or city from the West rather than those popular entrance. While we've maintained it very well, you can certainly see a lot of inconsistency that exists within the design. And unfortunately, I think it stands out for those reasons in the wrong ways. And I knew there was a plan design already. I think a lot of what you would be doing seems to be more common sense oriented, right? We're already talking about not removing mature trees. We're talking about putting shrubs in, things like that. I guess I just wanted to ask maybe the landscape architect's opinion of the condition of Sunset Drive and how it compares maybe to some of our neighboring cities. For instance, I know Lejeune, Douglas Road, Ponds, they all have very, very well designed medians with shrubbery with, you know, it's very intentional. So what would you say the condition is at this point, which is obviously very similar to the condition it was when you first designed it? Yeah, I mean, everywhere is different, but the master plan I think is a great idea. Because, you know, what you want to do first is sort of go down and evaluate We're basically focused on the median But you know if you look at the adjacent you know the north and south sides of the street There's a lot of areas where you don't have pedestrian crossing that there's you know right now There's some trees that aren't healthy or doing well in little tree grades And there's no reason why you couldn't cut off the concrete and make a five-foot landscape strip so there's more root zone and you don't get making more successful for trees and then maybe established criteria for you know if you do new projects you can do structural soil under the concrete so trees have more root space you know if I was to approach this again ideally you know like I said there's a bunch of mature trees out there so you can kind of find a way to harmonize that with new stuff and make it more consistent without losing it. So maybe you have a cluster of black olives and you do the stretch of oaks, then another cluster of black olives or something else and sort of harmonize everything, maybe even those existing trees, you could have a consistency of shrubs along the base, so it's still visually, you know, it's kind of harmonious and, you know, there's areas, it's basically you've got to go through and evaluate. So right in front of City Hall, there's the medium with all the big date palms, which is beautiful, but there's, you know, shrub area and then a little area with concrete strips and gravel, it could just be nice consistent shrubs. The plant are under the US one, under the metro rail, there's some stuff in there that's a little weaker that could be nicer. There's definitely areas where you can focus on doing a punch or basically just talk how we do master plants, palms in the corners, things like that. Thank you. I appreciate it. And then the last thing and really the reason I wanted to Hear more about this and maybe push it forward is I mean this just happens to be one of the many sort of plans that never really took off kind of Got off the ground never really broke ground on on doing any kind of improvements there And while I do think a master plan is is a prudent thing I would love to be able to do something, especially when it comes to maybe landscaping, where we could be a little more hands-on, a little bit faster, to be able to get something planned for sunset drive and then expand it out from there. I know that it's prudent to look at the big picture, but just like a lot of the things here, we're talking about plans that will be three, four, or five years down the line where maybe this commission's composition is different or maybe the priorities change would be great. For the residents who have paid a lot of tax money over a long period of time to be able to see these sort of long needed improvements on our, especially our main roads, the county roads, the roads that are really kind of our city's front yard, so to speak. That's where everybody sees and gets an idea of who we are and what our reputation is. You know, Santa drives 64th Miller things like that. Where we can do things. Just for purposes of mayor since I was at a town I didn't have a chance to talk to the mayor about it. The item came forward as a result of conversation commissioner Corey who had explained that he thought that there had been a project. I didn't really fully comprehend that it actually had been a design project that went to commission. So we just put it on the agenda to reintroduce it and get some guidance before we spend any more money or time and effort just to kind of gauge an interest. And so that's why this is before you just have this conversation and get some input as if there's an interest. And the vice mayor had just asked a question right before you walked in mayor about since we're looking to do a landscape master plan and there's RFP out should we wait for that. That question was posed. And but that's why it this is before you. It's something that had been discussed previously by the commission. And a portion of the project was a realignment of six to avenue is what went forward the landscaping aspect did not But we didn't really want to spend a whole lot of effort on it unless this commission had an interest in moving forward First let me apologize for being late my apologies Glad to glad to make it Before I jump in with the thoughts commissioner Lehman. Did you want to do you speak on this? Certainly, just a quick question in terms of jurisdiction. Talking about the metro rail planters. Who maintains them, Commissioner? What's the question? My question is, you just, I'm speaking to you, it's pretty simple. You just said you wanted to change the foliage and the metro rail planters. So is that our jurisdiction? Are we able to do that? Perhaps, yeah, that was in the original point I think. We currently have an agreement from, all the way from Dixie right to city border through Florida Department Transportation. So we use Brightview as an outsource company that does the maintenance of a VN agreement with FDOT for us to maintain the median on sunset. And US one for the matter, too. OK. Further questions or comments from colleagues? Yes, Madam Vice-Mirror? If we're not waiting for the master plan, can we at least look and see what is going on around us so that we don't hit culture shock? You know, you move from the gables into South Miami and then into Pinecrest and for lack of another way of saying it, I don't wanna look like the weed section of the landscaping. So, second that emotion. Yeah, so whatever it is needs to be beautiful in the same sense that those other cities are beautiful So you don't go wow, we got here. Okay, we're gone So mr. Manor just a level set and come sir. I'll recognize you right after You mentioned there's a I'm sorry. There's a there is an RFP out for a landscape master plan designer. That's correct Okay, and when is that process at the close? 2445 okay, thank you. I was not aware so that's good news And when does that process at the close? 24-year-long. 24-year-long. 24-year-long. OK. Thank you. I was not aware. So that's good news. Khmushikai, did you? Were you aware? I've just been made aware. It's not even a little bit submitting for that. So going back to the semantics of the question, Vice Mayor, I'd ask, whatever we're roughly decided to take. Since you're already done the design, do you consider this a full redesign or is this something that you can leverage something you've already done? No, the shrub layouts and a rejuvenation of irrigation like new head layouts when we do this, has already been done. Really it'll just be putting the trees back that we were gonna take out and eliminated the new trees in those spots and just swapping out shrub species. So the design, the layout, the shape of all the shrub beds stays. It's just, you know, what we had, bullbine should be something else now, or there's like two species, I think, that were weak from US one, that we just swap out. So it's not a total redesign. We've already surveyed it and done all that stuff. We have sheet set up. It's just swapping on species and keeping the existing trees. And I know previous commissions to current commissions. Some things change here and there. I think that one thing that you'll notice, and I know, out of the early on those, is that one of the things that we've been. We love canopy. We just did a study. We saw that we lost canopy as a city. So canopy for us is pretty important. Hopefully I'm speaking for all of us here. Hey, man, did that. I think it's important that you understand, if we move forward with this, that you understand canning is really important. There's new buildings being popping up throughout the city, and you'll see that changing through the next five years. Take that into consideration. Some of the landscape designs that we've seen come through here, they're not the greatest. So if we can complement or help out and you know, doing this, these top of designs and drills, you know, just make sure you're conscious about doing that. Thank you. I'm sorry, I have a question from my colleague here. I'm an advice for you a question about presentation. I just don't know if any of you guys have seen what this layout would be. Yeah, there was a PowerPoint. I believe it was the layout that was in the PowerPoint. Mr. Kaminatez. Like. So we had the species in the PowerPoint. Yeah, so I don't think we had a plan sheet that actually had the. That's correct. Okay, so if you could, if you could do as a fairer Mr. Manager and would staff help circular copies of that, I know it was a comment I had to the Japanese Manager when she briefed me this week on the item. I had a couple of questions from what was in the PowerPoint and there were some references to maintenance escalations about $24,000 a year. Can you, I didn't understand what the source of the escalation was if you can dive into that for me a little bit. Sure. So that was basically based on the proposal that we have right now on the design. We went out, we reached out to our, you know, landscape maintenance company and they gave us the cost to maintain that particular design. Okay. So the existing design has a $24000 dollar annual maintenance cost associated with it. Okay, now if we were to change out the species to use stuff that I'm assuming that's because water principle here, are there these drought resistant or I forget the zero-scape style plants or what kind of plants or what kind of shrubs that we select for this particular design and is that the reason is that driving is a species selection? Driving the cost of the maintenance in part. So yeah, the species selection was based pretty much to mirror What was planted along with us one? Okay, I think they're droughting time. Yeah, the most part It's native plants or zero plants. So they're all drought tolerant. OK. You know, mainly just comes from because of roadway, you have to prove, make sure not overhang and it's fertilizing and just placing stuff. I wanted to understand whether or not the selection of the species. Because I thought I saw something in the presentation deck. That was a pair that you were recommending possibly alternating or switching species. And I didn't understand what we were contemplating switching out. And whether that was the reason there was a escalation of the maintenance. So basically what we have is as close to maintenance free as we were ever going to get. Correct. Okay. There's never no maintenance but it's slow maintenance. Okay. Mayor, it's also, I'm sorry, like right now it's pretty barren. So they just go in and mo No, I know that the conditions not I can just not be happy about so I yeah, that's but I wanted to understand whether Because again the presentation I just say this and not intend to be a criticism but a comment really the presentation in terms of Understanding what the recommendation was left me a little bit unclear so Just Mr. Ray to we can kind of button that up. So I got to know what policy was really to get input. It was really introduced what was designed previously and understand, hey, is there an interest in going into this direction? If there is, then we would tweak the design and bring it back as a design. So by way of common, I think it's, look, I've been wanting to do this improvement since today. We got up here. I think it's, look, I've been wanting to do this improvement since the day we got up here. I think if we have a plan that's ready, I would say let's figure out how we move it forward. And I think, you know, it should help inform the work of the consultants that we're, that we're hopefully in a higher through that, does not, through that selection process. And maybe this is, maybe this is an aesthetic we want to replicate in a variety of different conditions. I mean, I think that's the experts. Commissioner Guy. Not the expert, but I have another question. So this is based on the 2020 design, correct? You have not incorporated anything that we just spoke about whether it's canopy and all that stuff. So I think what we need to take back to the manager and its team is if there is a redesign or some type of what that looks like, that's not in this proposal at all, correct? Correct. Okay, so I want to make sure that I'm clear. But to clarify, to clarify your clarifying question, we're also talking about leaving the mature black olive trees in place. That wasn't in this design. I know it's not. So we're talking about leaving them, so I want to, because I got here late, I apologize. I want to understand, we're talking about leaving the mature trees in place, not removing them. That's correct. This is probably, yeah, this is a condition where black olives maybe on sidewalks, they're traversed here, probably a pretty good spot to keep them rather keep them at the mature trees. But that is what we're talking about, correct? Keep, okay. So I'm clear now. Not only keep, I think we want to add to the idea that this design was taking out the black olives. We want to make sure we incorporate those. And I have more canopy to that. Yeah, from my perspective, in the future, I'd like to see less palm trees, right? And more shade bearing trees, whatever the species is that makes sense depending on the location You know to the extent that this is not designed we need to be modified for that Personally, I've also said I'm a big proponent of sometimes less is more I rather get you know few or small DBH trees and some larger specimen trees Even though it's a bit more expensive it kind of just in terms of the visual impact, the immediate return or relief it provides, I think is very value created for the city. So that's certainly my thinking, I think generally, depending on the cost where we can land on projects, probably a sentiment that we all share at some level. He did talk about that before before you got here. He said, you mentioned keeping the black balls adding maybe oaks and back all is again and kind of cycling. Yeah okay. It's a matter of my spare. One thing that we all need to be cognizant of I believe as we run through this I think it's a good idea. I just think we need to make sure that this is something we want to prioritize as we work I think we need to make sure that this is something we want to prioritize as we work towards trying to prioritize the hometown area. So not that they have to be mutually exclusive, but I think when we're thinking this through the dollars need to make sense so that we're not diverting from what is our priority? Excellent point. And just to the managers, is this project funded? I don't think it is in our capital budget, correct? No, we have sort of bucket categories of landscaping. So in this case, we would tap those specific line items, which were put in the budget, specifically for these kind of projects. Obviously, as it relates to sunset drive improvements, that project will have some sort of cost to it that we'll have to come back and we're putting some money away for that. So there's a different pot of money. And what was the estimated cost for the 2020 design when it was developed? But $250,000? About $28,000. Yeah. $28,000. Yeah. And80,000. Yeah. $280,000. Yeah. And just to be clear, we can apply tree funds dollars to this potentially, right? Which I think has over $100,000 in it. We could. I mean, yeah. It definitely would qualify for it. So we have pots of money that we have allocated, especially for these type of projects, including a master plan and other projects. In this case, obviously we didn't want to spend money on a redesign until we got some sort of feedback that this commission was interested in moving forward. Looking through the mayor. Just an FYI for the commission. I know there's a lot of, there's currently a revision or a look into it, maybe the city manager can follow them up on me. But there's a plan coming down the pipeline to give us a recommendation of what to do with the tree fund and the allocation of funds and how much the penalties are and so forth because I think we've been very lenient. So you'll see that coming through. Okay. Okay, so any final comments? So the direction of the vandors is bringing this back for our consideration. We want this part of our budget process As a capital possible capital project or do you want to see this as a standalone item? I'm sorry. So we have money in the current budget that that once that design comes back If that's a desire and it gets approved then we would bid it out That we could use current funding this year fiscal money for this project. Okay. Understood. You got that. Is that the direction, Collinx? That would be my preference. Okay. So one, can I get a motion then to direct the manager to? I bring a revised design back. I move the motion. Is there a second? Second by the vice mayor. It looks like. I'll do it. Okay. Are there anyone in opposition to the request? Seeing none, I'm going to do a bi-unanimous acclimation that and say that it's direction has been given. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I think we have one other presentation and that's Mr. Thank you. Thank you. Okay I think we have one other presentation and that's Mr. Diaz. You're recognized to update us on the modifications to the city's website. Good evening to all. Brandon Diaz, Communications and Marketing Manager for the city. We're here today to present you guys the new city website that has recently been redesigned and redeveloped. One of the topics of conversation that I got brought on board and one of the things that we've been talking about since I've been in this position is creating a best-in-class city when it comes to communications and marketing. One of the steps in the right direction of that is our new City website along with its features and its new improvements. So I'll go ahead with our further ado. A lot of presentation to begin. Good evening residents. Mayor, commissioners, city manager, city clerk, and city attorneys. We are thrilled to announce the launch of our newly redesigned City of South Miami website. Our goal was to create a more user friendly, informative, and accessible online presence that better serves our community and enhances our communications with residents, businesses and visitors. Some of the new features and improvements included on the redesign of the website are a modern design with a new and improved homepage and overall look and feel. Our new design is clean, intuitive and mobile friendly ensuring a seamless experience on all devices that also features video content and highlighting the city of South Miami. In-hands navigation, the revamped menu structure makes it easier to find information quickly, as well as a site-wide integrated search bar. How can we help? Whether you're looking for city services, upcoming events, or contact information, everything is now in just a few clicks away. How do I, whether you're looking to pay a bill, apply for a permit, or contact the department, this website tab is designed to help you navigate city operations effortlessly. Shop Sony are new and interactive business director that provides detailed information about city shops, eateries, entertainment venues, and all self-mining businesses. MySomie Portal. Residents can now access a variety of online services, including submitting a service request, online forms, website notifications, important links, and online payments directly through this online portal. Community profile, the one-stop destination, to dive into the intricacies of South Miami's local economics and demographics. Employee portal, this secure and user-friendly section is dedicated to providing city employees with access to essential resources, important updates, and convenient tools to support their daily work. Police to Citizen Portal, this online interactive platform allows for residents to access South Miami Police Services and Information easily. Department videos will not be creating video content for each city department that will highlight their operations and their impact on the data bases they have on the residents of the city of South Miami. And now you see a preview. Yes, the part we have to transition over to the video. I know what is the emphasis. No pressure, John. We're just all watching here. So the next segment is going to be showing you guys a piece of content that's going to come up. So we're going to work on videos for each of the different departments for the city that will showcase pretty much the operations for each of the city departments. So I'll go ahead and start with the public works division and engineering is the first video piece that we have done and the goal is to create each of the different these stuff content for each different department. Public works and breaks down in several different divisions. Motable division, solid waste division, also streets division and building division. We take care of the right of ways, such as the swells, the different swells in different areas, throughout the city. We also maintain potholes. We still go tree trimming. We pretty much beautify the city. We have this app called SOMI Connect. Our app is so great because we respond to residents within 24 or 48 hours. The reason why we're so quick to respond because we do have staff in-house that allows us to take care of everything immediately. As an office support for the public works department, I'm the one that answers the calls from residents, contractors, asking questions. Let's say of a Miss Garbage, if they want their thresholds to be filled, if they want their garbage container to be either replaced or they got their garbage container stolen. We deal with many kind of permits, MOT permits, maintenance of traffic, sidewalk permits, driveway permits, basically anything from the sidewalk to the roadway, public works, engineering department handles, as far as you know, permeating is concerned. This is a city of pleasant living and we continue to strive to keep it that way. the Here's the top 10 places where everyone is moving in the United States in 2024. And we're going to deep dive into do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it and we greatly improve our ability to serve and engage with our community. Thank you for your time and I hope this presentation was informative. Please feel free to ask me any questions that you may have on the site. Thank you. All right, yes. Colleagues, any questions? No, I just want to say I love it. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to say a great job. I know how difficult it is to build a website Every aspect of it from the design to the content to the coding to launching it from transferring all the other pages over There's just a million things that can happen to go wrong. You did a great job Mobile responsive site great UI UX you guys you guys did great and it's great representation in the city Thank you. I was waiting for the Sio question ah no it's all right we'll do that off off off camera thank you no questions see you look great thank you thank you congratulations thank you for presentation thank you thank you okay I'm clerk do we have an add-on item this evening yes one okay if you could read that please it's a residential in the mayor and city commission of the city is off my to be able to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have a motion to approve the minutes of June 18th? Oh, we're deferring that. My apologies. So we will show the minutes of June 18th, 2024 is deferred. And we will move on to the City Manager's Report, Mr. Manager. Her Madam Manager, good evening. Good evening. Pretty much just event updates for you guys tonight for starting July 1st, the Senior Center is extending its hours to 3 p.m So that will allow for some afternoon activities. They have dominoes crafts indoor bowling a lot of fun stuff planned On the event side obviously we have our big one coming up fourth of July that's up Palmer Park Starts at 5 p.m Fireworks are at 9 p.m. We have several live bands. There's going to be a kid zone. There are going to be a lot of food trucks and vendors, so it's going to be a good time. We invite everybody to come out. Carpool, if you can, parking is tight. July 13th is Rio's Bike Rodeo that's hosted by the South Miami Police Department. That's from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's going to happen on the same street where we host Somi Second Saturdays. It's going to feature different bike challenges for kids. So they're going to have different courses, bike safety checks, helmet giveaways. And then following that five to 10 will be Somi Second Saturdays. This one's going to be themed. It's going to be a country night. So we have a country DJ. There's going to be some line some line dancing moving forward We have some fun themes going on so we invite you all to come to that Let's see if the managers report tonight Thank you any questions colleagues Okay, seeing none Thank you Madam manager Mr. City Attorney. Thank you mayor one minor matter. I believe this commission had previously We had presented a conflict of interest issue that we had with Baptist Hospital, South Miami Hospital. We had spoken about it, but I don't think it ever made it into the minutes. So I am again requesting that any conflict of interest be waived just to give you a little background. Another one of our partners represents, or has represented Baptist from time to time. We do obviously South Miami Hospital has a lot of applications pending. They have another application pending now before the design review board, and they are proposing an ordinance at this time. So it came up again. Baptists had already waved it. I've, we thought that you had waved it formally, but I guess not. So I guess I'm asking that you consider a waiver of that conflict of interest. And again, I'm got distracted. I apologize. This is the waver, the ordinance related to the urgent care facility. And they have their facility on 60 second and sunset. I don't presently do any working it as lily for Baptist hospital. So I just wanted to clarify what the absolute matter was. Okay. Questions? Okay. If there are no questions, can I get a motion to approve the waiver of the Conflict of the Council? I'll move it. Okay. So, motion by the Vice Mayor. A second by Commissioner Coye. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Yes. Commissioner Coye? Yes. Commissioner C Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to go back to the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side I think the Green Task Force would love to be part of that process, because we had very good luck with the U.S. one planting when we involved the landscape committee, citizen landscape committee. So, you know, I don't want to hold things up, but I think it would be great if we'd granted by the Green Task Force. That's a good idea. Thank you. Second thing is about the recycling. I think it's important for us to keep recycling it once a week, because it sends a message to the residents that recycling is as important as trash removal. And recycling is our future. You know, that I think it's important for us to encourage it, and to give the residents a chance to consider both the trash and recycling as equal sort of components. So really that's all I think it's important for the city to take a stand on this and in fact to encourage the county to do more recycling rather than more and better. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that. It's construction. I think the chief is going to ask them to stop if we can. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you jumping into action. If you could arrest them, that would be great. The man of action there, yeah. It's only gives us an hour. Hopefully we will not be too long. Okay. Is there anyone else who would like to come before this commission on any item? The floor is open for public remarks Please come forward at this time. Do we have any other lists for public remarks? No? Anyone online? Okay, seeing no one in the chamber and no one online we will close public remarks and We will move on to the next item That is commission reports colleagues Anything you'd like to share for the committee order? I have just a brief statement because I'm just in the opening of the meeting. Anyone? Recognize? Yes, sir. I just wanted to share with everybody that I met with the chief yesterday. I'm hoping to open up our unhoused outreach meetings that we hold monthly to the public and extend that to the commission as well I think if anybody did show up we might have to advertise that but we do have those meetings once a month in the library and we're gonna be opening it up to residents and business owners to be able to offer any help that they can and feedback and identifying any individuals things like that. So just to let everybody know that we are and feedback and identifying any individuals, things like that. So just to let everybody know that we are going to be opening those meetings up. Thank you, sir. Anyone else like to share anything? What is the commission report? Yeah. Yeah. Shikai, you recognize. Thank you, Mayor. A couple things at the elderly facilities we celebrated the following day with our grandpas. Some of us went out there, it was a really cool event. We had Miami-Dade Fire Rescue taking up temperatures and blood and cholesterol tests, good music, good food, had a great time out there. So I think as we continue to move on as the city incorporate our communities and they really do love us and it was a really good time. Secondly, I had a meeting last week with the underlying and one of the things I've been working on is to continue to improve worker relations from our community with a lot of our vendors and contractors. We have a lot of work going on. The city is continuing and I really want the local community to really go into the a lot of our vendors and contractors. We have a lot of work going on in the city and this can continue. And I really want the local community to really go into the vice-mayors, keep it kind of together with our own people. So I'm really working on getting a lot of a sheet of employees, different worksets, whether it's supervisors, inspectors, electricians. I partnered up and there's pictures and there's a lot of marketing going to start happening now, but I was there with the bank daily, I met with the contractors. I'm gonna be working with Commissioner where a lot of office and coconut grove in the rest of the area. So we can really build a pipeline in a single place where people can come in, look for our people and really start hiring, mentoring, apprenticeships. So I'm pretty happy about the first meeting. It turned out really well. You will see pictures coming soon. So that was the underlying kind of project that I've been working on. And lastly, just, you know, we've been going back and forth in some of the boards. And I want to give you guys an update on the Unique Abilities Board. We've added people from IDS stage. We have speech pathologists coming on board. We have musical people coming on board. And really what we're trying to do is build a community by themselves while they set their own goals, achievements, and a commission leaving stated this early, which I thought, you know, it was something that we're working on. So I appreciate the feedback., it was something that we were working on, so I appreciate the feedback. But it's cool to take off, and you see the community really enjoy it, and they really wanna be a part of it. So I encourage the commission and our staff to continue to work with these boards and cultivate them and encourage them to do more for our community, because it really is an extension of what we wanna do for the city. So those are the three things I want to talk about today. Thank you, yes, Madam Vice Mayor, I recognize. One thing that Commissioner Coyde doesn't mention is at the Father's Day event, he brought his son who helped serve meals and talked to people and just generally be a joy. And I think that the seniors were very happy to see that. So thank you for kind of bringing your family in to making that happen. And to the Parks and Rec team, we keep hearing about these great events that the seniors are doing and we need to get credit where credit is due. It's definitely 100% them and I'm thankful and I'm especially happy because they're very forward thinking. Last year at the 4th of July event there was a tent for seniors and food and all of this stuff and we were like wow it's so hot we should have fans next year and it just occurred to me out of nowhere the other day and when I reached out they were like oh no way we got it we already did that and so I think we we sometimes spend time talking about the things we haven't done or should do but we don't spend enough time talking about how amazing our team is and so thank you very much to our parts and wreck team and to public works which helps them put it all together thank you very very much for taking care of our seniors the way they do. Through the manager one word I mean through the mayors. Yes sir. You're welcome. So the other thing I wanted to talk about the community as well is that it was our mayor's birthday last week and the community themselves set up a little cake event and some food. So it was cool how they give back to the mayor. They think he's the most handsome one. Whatever. I'm very sad. Thank you. I've been very sad. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll be very glad to hear from you. I'll serving employee of the city of South Miami over 44 years of service to our community. It was privilege to go to the memorial service today and I never think I've never had to just meet him but certainly learn a lot about him today and got to interact with his lovely wife Marta Atlanta another South Miami Medellin connection was revealed to me at least today. She's a Medellin native so we talked quite a bit about Columbia Medellin even our sister cities program, Commissioner Liebman. And it was wonderful just to hear of George's selfless service particularly in comments by one of our own Randy who you know regaled us with quite a few stories about George and what a formal voice he was as a member of our union, the union and running the department. And even after his retirement, his continued service to make sure that things continued to run well in South Miami. Among the things I'll quickly share was his pension to basically wear his old mechanic uniform. After he was retired and go out on to some sets, he just randomly pick up to bring those on the street. Just someone who's very committed to our city and who is sorely missed by his friends and family. And I just wanted to make sure we were aware of his service, that the community was aware of his service, that we're grateful to him and that our prayers are with his family, obviously, in this very difficult time. At some point we'll get a Mr. Manager I'd like to kind of connect with you and a couple members of the staff to see if there's something we can do to honor him more formally here as a city. But thank you for the few minutes of the honor George. With that let's move on to a couple discussion items. I think the first one is on Spartan mosquitoes mosquitoes and I think Madam Paismire, that's your item. Would you like to share with us your thoughts? Sure, and I would be remiss if I did mention this was not my idea. I'm actually, for lack of the nice way of putting it, ripping off our former mayor, Mayor Stauderd, who was, I think, very clever in how he dealt with mosquitoes. And, you mosquitoes and all kinds of pests, I guess, is the way I could put it. We all, as homeowners, a while back, received these little kits if we wanted them to help kind of stave off the mosquito invasion. And they worked really, really well. And so I started thinking recently, gosh, we're not really doing anything. And it's been so rainy, I always gauge, but how much rain there is is how many times I've had to empty the water in the pool. And it's been quite a bit. And then we started hearing about Denge in the Keys and in a part of South Florida somewhere. And so we reached out to Jeremy of Spartan, and he is willing to sell us like these massive amounts of it, even though I don't know how, but Mayor Stoddard got it for free to him. And so I just wanted to kind of bring it to our attention because we have to do something. One of our city attorneys, Ms. Arango pointed out that the county also has a mosquito like department, but having never seen them or even really heard of them, I can't really speak to that, but I think if nothing else we should look into what we can do, whether it's the Spartan mosquito, little things along with reaching out to the county and having them spray. We need to do something because doing nothing which is what we're doing right now is not working. Anyone have questions with the vice mayor? Do you wanna see, I know that there's like a little video or something, do you have that John? So you can see. Well, there's someone in the audience that has his ear. Maybe we can get Phil Stauder to come back here and help him. Yeah, right. Just maybe. Or, you know, if he's, I mean, he might not, I haven't spoken to him about it. I just didn't want to take credit for something that he's done. I don't think that's right. mosquito thing. I mean if he's interested in talking about it I'm sure there's there's always a way to do that but I at least want us to start thinking about it it's so simple thank you Thank you. It's not easy, but it actually works. I had them at my house. It actually really works. Okay, so just a couple questions. So the idea would be for us to purchase these and distribute them to house And it actually works. I had them at my house. It actually really works. OK, so just a couple questions. So the idea would be for us to purchase these and distribute them to households. And do we have a sense what the unit cost would be? The unit cost of a pack of two tubes is $13. They could lower it to $12.75. And how many would you typically use in a typical house? Well, if you look at the video actually showed you, you like a regular sized property uses two of them. So each house unless it's a very large property, does two of them. Maybe we start with reaching out to the county and seeing what they're doing and then seeing if we can fit something like this in it. Do we think this is the best? I just wanted to bring something up because to come up and say, hey, we got mosquitoes, I think is like redundant. Into the manager, and I guess they're saying, I know that, you know, other communities, like the keys have mosquito districts. I guess we've internalized that at the county where I forgot what the department actually does, spraying or on a proactive or reactive basis. I don't know if you guys have any information about how that service gets offered across the county, Mr. Manager, and just a little bit of that. Through Miami-Dade County and public works, and obviously calling 311 does help. A lot of times when they get calls in and they log those, that generates calls for service that they may, and they have two types of operation. One is ground control, the other one's aerial. And so depending on certain areas, you know, they decide what methodology to use. Obviously different than what we're looking at here. But that's their operation is either a vehicle mounted and or aerial spray. But they only offer the aerial spray, correct? I'm sorry. They only offer spring as a correct, local ice spray. Okay. I mean they they monitor counts because they have these traps throughout locations in the county and they monitor those traps and based on that is how they determine frequency of spring but totally different than then obviously a commercial product that that residents can be available themselves of. Yeah, I just I the only thing that worries me with that is it's reactive so we'd be having to kind of reach out to our populists and say hey reach out to somebody else to get some mosquito relief. I'm just trying to find ways for us to be proactive. For the questions, would this be something we'd be able to do on a lower scale considering the distribution model might be people coming to pick up or something like that. You could just offer it and have people coming get it and you could purchase a few or amount of them see if it was a popular program or. Yeah, I mean I just rough math. I mean the vice-member think along the same lines you know it's about $54,000 if we bought one free tassel so I don't know that's an expense we want to incur or not. Certainly you know is there there might you know, maybe something we want to actually try to message out and see people feel there's a need for us to provide them or maybe there's just a way to possibly leverage our buying power to allow people to access this at a much lower cost they would commercially. Maybe not incur the entire cost ourselves, but I'm open to any direction you wanna give the manager on exploring this further. I mean, I think it's certainly in many ways more attractive to me than the spraying, right? Because it's the spraying has its own environmental or the health issues that are attended to that as well. So. I agree. Maybe what we can do is we could, as Ms. Reed was so nice to point out, we can reach out to Mayor Stauderd and see how many did we buy last time? I don't know if we got 40, if we got 40, 200 of them, maybe we start with, you know, 500 of them and see where we land, do people reach out for them? Maybe we could put it on our website and on our social media and see if there's interest while we have those conversations. Does that work? Yeah, I would also maybe see if the sponsor wants to donate a certain amount and match whatever we buy so we can, for them, it's probably as much a promotion opportunity as it is anything else. So, I mean, that would be certainly my suggestion. Do we know to do you want to kind of suggest direction and we can all have something? I think that, I mean, as far as the discussion item is concerned, I think that we can reach out to Mayor Stoddard and see kind of where that conversation started. We can also reach out to the vendor and see if if we can reach out to Mayor Stoddard and see kind of where that conversation started. We can also reach out to the vendor and see if we can reach any kind of deal of by when get one or even just get a discount on them and do a pilot of it. Okay. Mr. Manager, do you need any more formal direction than that or is that fairly clear? We'll do a little more due diligence and then come back with You know maybe some some pricing Matrix or something that we could share obviously Given the amount it would we have to come back to this commission regardless. Okay Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Winner vice mayor Okay, I'm too if you could read that to the record, please minimum work I'm going to be a little more quick to talk about the next slide. Okay, I'm too. If you could read that to the record, please. I'm clerk. Okay, so that it's just tonight. I'm going to bring forward for a quick discussion. John, if you can share some pictures for me. As I often walk my dog or driver on the city, I will have a picture and one of the trends that I know that a little disturbing is The other driveways that are being torn up To replace the gravel in order to meet the impervious requirements I'm not particularly opposed to gravel, but in many cases the conditions are This is this the front yard of a home. That's actually adjacent to the Bobwals Park You probably might be familiar. It's had a substantial that's actually adjacent to the Bobwall spark. You probably might be familiar, it's had a substantial addition that was built on it. It's a nice home. Others where they've added a gravel driveway, he was the next picture, the rest is improved with traditional tile. I'm sorry Mr. Mayor. Yes. Can we go back? Yeah, please. Go ahead. Go back too. Yep. Yeah, please. Is that a trailer? That's a trailer in the front. You are in a boat because they're actually doing construction at the rear of the property. So I think they've moved it there temporarily. It's my guess. I'm not seeing always there in the front when I was walking but recently. As in condition about six months ago, but you'll see here what's happened is the driveway has been torn out the asphalt and we're pressed the gravel in sections. There are other sections in the city where, in our neighborhood, Commissioner Lee, I mean, you'll see that the gravel has been ruled altogether and gravel has been left. If you can go back one side, John, this is a condition I think is fine, where the gravel actually has a border on the edge of it. That's not certainly something that's required today. A lot of what I'm concerned about is the proliferation of gravel to kind of get around the impervious coverage requirements, resulting gravel being introduced into the right of way. And you have loose rock and material, you know, in the street, not in ideal condition. Other cities require if you're going to use gravel, it's permitted, but it has to have an edge or a border. There's a couple. I think there's one example where it was done fairly nicely in my neighborhood recently with a new home. Keep going. This is a neighborhood I think wanted to pull to the rear of the neighborhood. You can see there's a newly printed grass, which is the footprint of their old asphalt driveway that led to their garage, which no longer has any access from a driveway. If you go forward one slide. If you go forward one slide, one more picture. There's my dog Milo making a cameo. There is the remnant driveway now that's left. So a lot of the asphalt was torn out, I think, to kind of get below the threshold, even with what we've liberalized. And again, I appreciate that they want to make use of their vacuum. But I know that necessarily, without some thoughtful planning, is leaving the best condition at the front of the house, which obviously impacts all the neighbors. I just wanted to highlight the issue because I think we, some thoughts required and how we kind of meet this challenge. I think gravel can be a good solution. It requires probably an artful design and other locations I've seen across the city. It's again spilling over into the right way. I just like to make sure that we have some standards. Nothing too onerous. Give people plenty of options, but at least some standards in our code to deal with this kind of condition. So there's, I think, a draft ordinance that's been put together by staff. I have not seen the current version, but I think it hits most of the elements of what I'd like to see. I think the requested they would be to refer that over to the planning board so they can discuss it and see if it makes its way to us with some final recommendations for possible adoption. So if there are any questions I'm happy to take them, that's the intent of the city's discussion. Yes, Madam Vice-Mayer? I always have questions. I actually read this and I pulled out the survey of my house because I have a circular driveway in my home and I was like, well, does if I were to do my circular driveway today, would I be able to do it and the answer is no. I have a lot that it's you know 109 I think deep on one side and 116 wide on one side but I live on a corner so the front of my house is actually 91 and so even though I have all this space I wouldn't be able to do that so when we're doing this type of thing, right now, it shall be limited to one curb cut for 100 feet or less in lot width. And two curb cuts for greater than 100. So does that's language of the staff? As you know, my intent was to deal with the driveway condition. I'll give you one other standard that's there that for me was particularly important. Was the minimum width of the drive aisle. There was a condition in my neighborhood where a drive aisle was being proposed, that was at points four to half feet wide, where there was a curve in the drive aisle or out of tree. So you can imagine that navigating that condition, keeping the vehicle on the drive aisle was gonna be impossible, and just there's some gaps in our standards today. that condition keeping the vehicle on the drive-out was going to be impossible. And it just there's some gaps in our standards today. So I'm, again, I would say to you that conditions like yours, I'm open to having conversations about everything that's on that paper. My, my, my ambition was two things. One is I want to make sure that we had minimum drive-iles that when cars are particularly navigating obstructions, you're expecting the cars to stay on either the gravel path or the improved asphalt or any other path. And then we're using gravel in particular, because it seems to be more and more of a surface of people are incorporating. I think for reasons that they want to get more and more out of their real estate in terms of impervious cover. Right? That it's being applied in a way that's not, you know, spilling over into the street, right? So those were my two main motivations for proposing any of the legislation. I don't wanna take any ownership for that standard that you're referring. Okay. Yeah, I just think that we need to look at what the realities are in the majority of our as-built homes before we subscribe to this, because if not, I think we leave a lot of people, my house, that driveways from 1957. Yeah, no, and I certainly, personally would speaking, would love to see you be able to rebuild and improve it, repair it if you need to. Exactly. Yeah, that would be my main concern, because if you don't have it. And maybe it's just a matter of grandfathering, legally permitted driveways, so that those standards won't apply to them. Okay, but I'm certainly open to that conversation. All right, thanks. Yes sir, you're recognized. Thank you Mayor. I support your concern. But when you go through this process, just in my opinion, a couple things to be aware of. Is one is gravel. The only motivation to not just be that it's pervious, it's also economical and it's attractive. I understand you're concerned it's containing it. And then personally, right, it doesn't look good to have a half and a half of anything, but I happen to find gravel more attractive than the asphalt personally. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I just think it's, you know, what I'm seeing is. Why someone would do that too? You have to question, right? I think they're just trying to get around the standard that was the limitation in activating the backyard. And I, and again, they're great people. I have nothing against them trying to do that. I just want to make sure that we have the rules to, at least, you know, I think the application there would be much happier if it was just all gravel, frankly, with appropriate edging, right? Because I think gravel is a perfectly fine application. Yes, sir. Commissioner Guy. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Are we sure that the impervious, the current, the previous calculations would impede on their current design? I just, that one condition of highlighted that had the no longer a driveway to the garage. I don't, I don't know. It certainly was done right before that was adopted. Yeah. I don't know if I figured out. But there's, but you know, I will say the home that's nearby Wolfs Park is a very large one that's being built. And plenty a lot there that, you know. That's a big house. It's a big house. I did speak to him. He was one of the reasons why I did that. I'm talking and knocking on doors when we did. He was very adamant about it. So that's one of the reasons. That's one of the reasons why I started thinking about making that change. If there's two things that he bothered, that particular person was that and so ordered. But the current calculations that we did it today would have made his whole as well. So again, I think the concern is, you know, people are using this application and let's just make sure it's done in a way that's a useful and value agreement not just to them but to the neighborhood. So, yeah. For the thoughts, questions? If not, can I get a motion to refer this to the planning board for consideration. I will move it. I'll second. Thank you so much myself and a second by the vice mayor. All in favor. Do we need to take a roll call vote or how we do this? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Show the items referring to the animously. Okay. If you can introduce M3, please. Modification and membership qualifications for the unique abilities board to allow both residents and business owners of sophomore. Shakae, is this your item? Yes, it is. Okay, if you want to go ahead and introduce it. Thank you, Mayor. It's just a quick fix to the literature that we on the legislation. We are very specific to homegrown or South Miami residents. I'm just adding, correct me if I'm wrong, city manager, loving city attorney. We're adding that and businesses in the city of South Miami. Correct. Correct, business owners. Business owners. Right, correct. Okay, let me see. That's all here. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right We make that change. Second. Motion by Commissioner Coyote. Second by Commissioner Cory. Madam Clerk. Sorry. Anyone in opposition to the item? Okay. Show the item is referred unanimously. If you can read item four please. Sorry. Yes sir. May before we advance the city attorney called me earlier and mentioned that there would be one more discussion item. Is that? There is. Yeah. That's going to be, I'm just going to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say that I want to say I did call the proprietor of the subject property following my conversation with the city attorney. So let me just, let's, we'll take it out of order here really quickly. Colleagues were called last meeting. We passed a resolution to authorize an RFP for a lot, a lot B, which is the parking lot, just what's the sunset place. Over the last few days, I was approached by the owner of the adjacent dry cleaning property, which we wanna become aware that was on the market, spoke to their council, their name was Josh Miller, had a very pleasant conversation about their intention to sell. I think it would be value-creative to the city and to them for us to consider pulling back on the RFP for maybe 30 days With the idea of possibly seeing if we can jointly dispose of both properties together and You all are maybe aware that the adjoining property to the dry cleaner which is currently occupied by a pizza establishment and a Greek restaurant is also on the market for sale currently. My thought was, and I guess you've had some conversation with them. Are they interested in selling still? And what was your conversation if you could share? Well, certainly, but I should more specifically go was referring to my conversation with the interior lot. I had that as a conversation I had today. Okay. And when I've offered this idea of the commission, I've mentioned that both of these properties were in fact in play or around the market. So I'm going to post this what's 30 days. Not only will both properties potentially be worth more, but it would be a better project for the city. But when I spoke with the proprietor, they said they were just interested in recouping their initial cost. I don't know if that's the price they paid or plus carrying, transaction costs. I asked that question. They didn't specify what they said is they would be reluctant. I know they approached us. So I know this is in conflict with the information you've received in writing. Should I go on, but they said that they would be reticent to tie up the property because then it would be off the market and they couldn't accept. Any offers? Right. And they're just looking to break even and get out. Okay. But it won't, but either way, nothing to lose. Yeah, it was 30 days. Again, I think the idea would be that, you know, as soon as we with a maximum of 30 days, just trying to engage them some conversation, see if we could formalize terms and put something out together. I think it would make for a much better execution for the redevelopment of all three parcels To be done jointly as opposed to individually or whatnot And if we can come to some understanding reissue the RFP with that arrangement someone range with a bind all three of us to At least seeing that process through so if there's a willingness to consider that I would just ask that we Direct staff to temporarily postpone the issuance of the RFP and then maybe direct the city attorney to, with the city manager to engage both property owners and begin discussing how we could move to issue a solicitation that would include both parcels. Yeah, I think the idea would be to see if we could just market it. Right now everyone's marketing the pieces individually, right? I think that the sum of the parts is greater, you know, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Before I destroy another, whatever it goes, I'm just a figure's beach. But that's the intent behind this request is to pull back. And then I'd offer because of relationship with the other two owners to make that introduction to either you may or the city attorney. Happy to have you have that make that connection force. Okay. Yes sir. So I've spoken to them as well. The owners of the establishments. And we also got, I got a letter of intent for the middle property, same with Commissioner Lehman saying. So they're offering for sale as well. So there's two different opportunities here that we need to kind of investigate a little bit. Yeah, they, my understanding was they were enlisting a broker to put it on the market. Uh-huh. My understanding was they were enlisting a broker to put it on the market. In the course of a few days, the expectations demands dropped substantially. That all said, I'm not sure that we, it's a piece I would particularly want to acquire, per se. Maybe I'm not sure that's a conversation we were interested in having. Certainly if it is the will of the spotty to have that conversation, we can have it. My thought was simply to approach them about marketing the pieces together through a formal solicitation. The latter is much better than what's been proposed so I agree. OK. So for the questions. I just want to clarify so that I have it right in my brain. We have R square, the dry cleaner, and then the other two are jointly owned by one owner. So we're talking about one to three lots. Correct. What I'm understanding that you're proposing is to then possibly amend the RFP that would be happening separate and outside of us correct. If they were going to be negotiating this RFP or putting in something for the RFP, they would independently be giving a bid or whatever on those other properties contingent on them getting our lot. I think, again, not to get two in the weeds here, but I think we would have to, they would probably have to communicate to us a minimum reserve price. Almost like an auction where there's a minimum they have to get. It comes here leaving alluded to what one of the property owners is looking for and then see how that would work out in this disposition scenario. But we're not part of that process for those privately owned parties. The idea would be, I think the idea would be to come up with, have to come up with a mechanism for those, the proceeds that would be bid for the entirety assemblage to be divvied up between the parties. And I would imagine that it would have to, in their mind, result in a minimum amount of proceeds for them to be bound by any particular bit. So let's just say that person of the center thinks our lot is worth not less than $2.50, right? If the proportionate consideration offered by a bidder does not result in them getting $2.50 in total compensation for their piece. They would not be bound to basically sell the piece. We could just be considered a disposition and execution just in our piece at that point in time. But at least it gives us the option for someone to come in and maybe make a bid. That's attractive to everyone and meets everyone's minimum expectation. Thank you. Thank you. What? Yes. It's just a couple things to point, which are obvious, may not be all. The property would really be in play would be the interior here a lot because you can't buy the ends right and do something without the interior piece. And that said the interior piece may have environmental issues. City piece has direct access. Obviously larger, there's the pizza place. It could argue has exposure from US one, but not the way it's oriented, it depends on the direction. But then also we've, and with this item maybe brought up cost recovery, it'll be our city the right way. I think the right way is to make sure that the right way is oriented and depends on the direction. But then also we've, and with this item maybe brought up cost recovery, it will be our city attorney and I believe correct me if I'm wrong city attorneys but this would be outside work. Would they share the cost with us three? Yeah, I think the respondents would pay the cost recovery. Okay. So I think, you know, I would suggest was- So it wouldn't be the- It wouldn't be the property owners. It wouldn't be the property owners. It would be the respondents to the solicitation as we would, right? We get the benefit of the cost recovery provisions in the document as well. Well, we would be risk as we'd have to pay the city attorney regardless of whether or not those owners accepted it off or whether or not it offered came in. I mean, it's a fair point. And it's a risk that we've got to discuss and whether it's worth taking it. But I think these are very preliminary conversations. Again, I just thought it would be work turning the stone over. And we can't get to a point where people want to be reasonable and short amount of time. We'll go out and do our own thing. I think certainly, I would say the center property owner has the most of gain from this conversation. Certainly the other at book end probably could trade well and do well enough on its own. But I think just the right, you know, I think we had some anxiety on the side of the day. I say about the solicitation because there is the possibility to do something larger, better possibly in terms of an execution. I didn't think that there was a willingness on the part of the owners to consider that. It seems that there's an opening. So I thought let's just have the conversations who will be ended up. Okay. So can I get a motion to direct the manager and the city attorney to approach the owners about a possible joint disposition? I'll move the motion. Okay, is there a second? Second. Okay. Pardon me, I just saw. It's just so we're clear. My understanding is these entities want to sell their properties? Yes. So would we be talking about a sale of Lot B? We would be talking about a sale. We have it right now as a sale or a lease. Correct. Okay. Yeah, I think at that point, we would probably, when the RP came back, it would likely be solely for the purposes of the sale. Understood. Okay. Is that for discussion there? Because I'm not really necessarily sure about the sale yet. I mean, there's still opportunities for a lease there. Yeah, so I think, let me, so I'll just address that. I think the difficulty is one of timing on the part of the other owners. So you know they're you know my conversation certainly is the transaction for one of the owners was not one that evolved as they had hoped and so they definitely are trying to see how they can maximize the return. I don't know if they're interested in having a long-term leasehold interest and again I leave it to the city attorney to tell me whether we can have a leasehold interest with a private party or whether that violates the Florida Constitution in any way So there are there are questions of law that at least novel to me not novel to the people that I don't understand It started just for the context the conversation. It's a maximum 50 release of that site correct Yes, yeah, yeah It's a maximum 50 release of that site. Correct, yes. Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. We're going to buy that. But I would imagine it'd be, Commissioner Coyote, to your point or your question. You probably would have to consider this position exclusively. OK? Mr. Manager, would you excuse me to turn any questions? I just a comment that depending on how this gets arranged just to be mindful that given the property and it's prior use. Any issues I don't know, I don't know if an assessment has been made of the property, it could be environmental issues. So just that we're mindful that we don't take on some of that. No, I think we're not in a position where we are knowing we want to be in a position where we are making ourselves responsible for any of the remediation costs. Triple that site so I wanna be clear that the idea is, if they have an expectation of a net number of proceeds, if there are costs or there's a discount associated with the value because of the remediation and to attribute it to their portion exclusively. So that would be my preference. I think the value of the board. I agree with you, Mayor. Okay. Okay, so we've think the bottom of the board. I agree with you, Mayor. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Sorry, I'm busy. Sorry. I mean, Tam here. Aye. Okay. Yes. So the item passes 5-0. Okay. All right, we need to speed this along. Thank you, Commissioner. Diet can watch soccer at 9 p.m. You know. So let's go. Okay, M4, please. Barring options and potential bond. Okay, so this is, we've had some, this is my item. We've had some conversation about the possibility of a borrowingrowing we've talked about it on the number presentations the intent of this item would be to Direct the city attorney to bring forward a question for our consideration at the next meeting In a recommendation on unamounts That could be placed before the voters For their consideration in November at the general election. Any questions? Yes. Madam Vice-Mirror. Of course. Where's this fine? Questions. One, I was kind of surprised to see this as a discussion item because this obviously something that you must have been working on for a while. So having it as a discussion item, I think leaves it open ended, makes me a little bit nervous, makes me a little uncomfortable. Because we're discussing something, we have no idea what it is, what it could include, and we're leaving ourselves. No, yes, so that- A very small period of time to have a discussion before we have to say yes to it at the next meeting. So let me kind of walk you through my mental timeline. So I've had some conversation with the city attorney about this very issue. Unfortunately for us to get anything on the November election ballot, it's got to be submitted to the Supervisor Lex and by July 26th at noon. Okay. Sally's is a very small window. We've had a couple conversations about this. With this we do bring forward the question and ask us to approve the language of a question specifically. We can continue to evolve the program. I don't think it forecloses us from evolving a program that would be funded by this. But to the extent that we wanted to have that wrapped up completely before we went to the voters. In my mind, we have another question that is kind of the precursor question to this. Unfortunately, we can't wait to see the outcome of that question before we authorize this one because the timing won't allow for it. But I have spoken to the city attorney if we wanted to withdraw this question because that other question fails, right? And so essentially it's kind of moot, I would say. I'm completely moot, but certainly, you know, much more difficult conversation to consider a borrowing under the existing rules. That's certainly something we can do. And I would say by the same token, if we were not comfortable with the program or had not arrived at an understanding of a program that we went on fund via this authorization, we still have the ability to buy late August, possibly ask the item not being included on the ballot. So Madam Seach, are any of my mistaken in my understanding or am I correct? Oh, you're correct, Mayor. It can be withdrawn timely. Okay, so we do have the ability to withdraw the item, but we don't have the opportunity to present it unless we take some action now. And are we going to be privy along the ride either via the city manager us having a sunshine meeting or discussions with the city attorney before this is actually on the agenda for the 18th, 14th? 18th would be the idea. Yes. So that we are before we have to vote on it, versed, comfortable, and have had whatever discussion it is we need to have, either as a group or with our counterparts, so that when that does arrive, that's not the point where we try to hash it out. So I would say the language I'm assuming is we pretty straightforward. This is not as complicated a question as I'm, and again, to the city attorneys you can correct me if I'm speaking, but probably the same form question that you would have for any GOB offering at any other city. So basically, it needs three components in the referendum question. The maximum amount of the bond of the GO bond, the purpose for the bond to finance capital improvement programs are pretty specific, the public purpose behind it, and then we set out the maximum rate permitted by law. So the question would have the amount, the maximum amount and the purpose of the program. Okay and will we be seeing that before we sit in these chairs in the next meeting so that if we have. The language, so I want to be clear the language of the bond, at the language of the question, yes. Okay. the language of the bond, at the language of the question, yes. Okay, if you want to see, this is a question to you. You want to see that the program, we have had a couple presentations on the elements in terms of needs. We can certainly have another conversation about what we would want to consider funding off that list. Yeah, I think that- Who do you think the process like that? I think that that would be best just because that way then, I think we're all agreeing to something that is concrete versus like an ephemeral kind of decision. I think not only us, but the residents should know the thought process behind whatever that is. Right. Yes. So one question to add to that. There's something on the capital improvements or anything that was on the document that comes up, for example, we have the opportunity to acquire set asset. That's not currently, does that automatically eliminate that? And I'll give you one more. So I just want to, again, just to turn you correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Madam City Attorney, so the program can evolve, right? The program we're going to put down a series are our best understanding what we would spend the money for. We can do it categorically, right? We've talked about that before, and a sign of a dollar amount to that. We can list specific projects, right? But that does not preclude this current commission or any future commission for making modifications to that program subject to public hearing right and I think an act would be ordinance correct and my recalling my Yes as long as you it's within the program that's identified in the referent. So so as long as as long as as long as So for example, we have park improvement a versus park improvement b So long as there's park improvements that are authorized generally or up to a certain amount and we stay within those thresholds, those parts are always interchangeable. So again, you know, thank you. Yeah, like we choose an amount and we choose a bucket. Correct. If we want to do that, we can just say we choose unamount and here are all the things that we would Spend it on right and what we may want to communicate to the public is our needs are this today Is what we would kinds of things we would spend it on right these are the kinds of things we would not spend it on But those priorities needs could change over time Part of the reason that I want to bring this forward now is that I don't intend to have us authorize a borrowing or issue borrowing in 2025. Obviously I don't think our financial position is such that we could forward to do that without raising taxes substantially. But I think the ability to show the ability to borrow right allows us to begin to show the ability to show the ability to borrow, right, allows us to begin to show the ability to match dollars at the federal and state level. And so that is, I think, the value of having the authorization issue today, and again, correct me if I'm wrong to my colleagues to the left, the authorization does not expire, right? There's no expiration date on it. We, it expires when we've exhausted the authorization that's been approved by the voters. So let's assume we want to borrow five bucks the day that we get to that $5 threshold, then the authorization expires. So it does give us the flexibility to match and we can decide collectively when we want to take dollars down. What the right timing is based on what we can afford at that time. Okay. You're welcome. For the questions. No, I have a comment there. right timing is based on what we can afford at that time. Okay. You're welcome. For the questions? No, I have a comment, Mayor. Yes. If we approve this as a commission, and it goes out to the public for vote, we should figure out how to best communicate that to our constituents. So, you know, working in sunshine and really coming up with a plan so people really understand what we're trying to do. Communication to our constituents is not always the easiest, so we really should work on that as well. 100% agree. Yeah. So, okay. So I'd like to move that we direct the city attorney to prepare language for consideration on the November, 2024 ballot, authorizing potential bond for the City of South Miami. Do you need us to provide you with direction on the amount or can we rely on you to work with the City Manager and his financial team to suggest an appropriate barring amount to bring back for consideration on the 18th. Assume we- That's the latter. Yeah, I can go. So just, we can certainly work with the manager, that's not a problem. We would probably advertise the largest amount that was even in the realm of possibility. So let me just so that- So that- No, no, no, so that you can- Yeah, the flexibility to reduce it. Exactly that you get the flexibility to reduce it exactly Yeah, so there's no question that you went over it. So my advice mayor here's what I would I'd like to because I I did spend some time Bobby mr. River all on his vacation This week about this and so I think if you recall our presentation the maximum amount that we That are F a and he presented to us was $87 million. That's certainly not what I would like to suggest that we end up on. Just made my chest hurt. You got a strong heart. I would, if you need a number, I would like to suggest $65 million. The outer, which is would be the outer limit, right? Just to kind of give us a working number. We can discuss whether that's the right number to land on. And if you guys, I don't know what the pro-legion of the board is with respect to a number. Anything. I'm leaving this to you. We can do get out of the 18. I think it'd be great to hear Mr. Riverall on the range. He thinks what would be the most effective lowest and the most practical highest. Did he do that? Did he do that? I think I feel like he did that. The most effective low? Yeah, he did. We shared a scenario that had a range just for purposes of this commission to understand what that would represent in debt service on an annual basis. So as I may have mentioned, the calculation was made by our financial advisor, as to our debt capacity, which it was in the tune of $87 million. So something in the order of magnitude of $50 million was about a $3.2 million debt service on an annual basis. So if you're up to $65 million, you're probably talking in order of magnitude about $4 million debt servers on an annual on an annual basis. We could clean up the list that was provided May 7th because some things have been updated since we've been working on projects and we can clean up that list, update some numbers and share that list again for your review as this item is being drafted and and then we can meet with you individually as well to have that conversation. So from the answer commissioner Corey on that range we have provided that from a order of magnitude. Now that also means I think about 65 million dollars would equate to 1.4 of a mill, but remember that we're retiring that. So we have that that's going to come off our books here in the next about five years. I think it's the first issuance that we may retire and then some additional debt in another. And then we don't issue all at once, right? These projects are scheduled through the LIFO bond program. So you see some things come in at different times. So, he has a little bit of a recap of the information we provided May 7th, but we'll update that list and share it. And then any other ideas that you may have that may not be on that list, certainly we can work on. Is it fair then to say that we should look to Mr. Riverall to give us his best? Yes, no idea. Is that what we could do without physical pain. So that last part, I think what I would ask the managers to just recommend what they think is an appropriate authorization amount. Again, how much pain we can tolerate is not a question that we've decided with the adoption of the item. Because ultimately, we've got to come back even assuming the charter has changed in August. We have to come back and by a majority vote to issue 65 or, I have to say Mr. Riverwell. No, I understand. So I've had quite a bit of conversation with them. $87 million based on the presentation, it was kind of the outer limit of what we can authorize based on charter and financial requirements, statutory requirements, and then we had scenarios of I think 35 and 50 million, Mr. Manager. That we're in the presentations and the commensurate debt service. So I just said let me go a little bit above what they presented. So we're at 65, so we can bring that number down further. We have some room to talk. I didn. So if we want to bring that number down further, we have some room to talk. I didn't think anybody would want to be in the realm of 87 million by way of the outlier number. But again, that's a number that when the discussion has had, hopefully on this item, we can try to write size that further. OK. Mr. Mayor, those calculations were made on a conservative 5% taxable value growth. So this year we were a little bit over 6%. And we know there's some other projects coming online, so that may be really conservative as it relates to a 5% growth. So I just predicate all those numbers are predicated on that taxable value growth. Okay. Further questions? on that taxable value growth. Okay. For the questions. Okay, so I'd like to move the we direct city attorney to prepare language for consideration by the voters in a referendum in November for the authorization of a general obligation bond. I just say it per purpose of advertising. Let's set the amount at $65 million. And unless someone wants to suggest $87 million, she's gonna make me choke. And that would be the motion. Is there a second? There's a second. Okay. Move by myself, a second by Commissioner Kaye. Any further discussion? Okay, I'm sure we're gonna have plenty on the 18th. Okay, all in favor, Si? All right. All right, motion carries. Okay, along the same lines, can you read item five please? It's charter amendment $5,000 purchasing threshold. Okay, so colleagues, as you know, the manager has long wanted us to have the public consider a change to the charter in terms of procurement threshold, which is currently $5,000. Again, the discussion is intended to basically result hopefully in direction to the city attorney to prepare a language to allow for a modification of that procurement threshold. Mr. Managers, there are an amount. I know there's an amount you recommended, and I believe there's's also recommendation recently from our budget finance committee on the side I'm if you could share it with us that would be appreciated. So budget and finance had Approach it from a standpoint of allowing the legislation to let this commission set it From time to time and and and so to give that flexibility instead of having that fixed amount in a charter From our standpoint you see cities that are similar in size between a $25 and $50,000 authorization for a manager from a spend standpoint. So we would be looking at a number in that range. We would be wrecking money and a number in that range. That's the will that we would kind of define that a little bit more. So I guess then the question for us is do we want to specify a threshold? That would be memorializing the charter or do we want to reserve that to this commissioner, future commissions to set the ordinance as a limit? Okay, that's the kind of the policy question we have to decide. In addition to saying that we want to put this out for consideration. Any thoughts on whether we want to specify it out or reserve that authority of the commission? I feel like we've seen the issue of having a single number in the charter and how that impacts our ability to function so I'd prefer to leave it to the commission. Second, I agree with that as well. Okay, I think we're unanimous on that point, so is there a motion to direct the city attorney to prepare about language for November? I'll move it. Okay. I'll second. Okay. So again, the motion will be to prepare the language with a reservation on the amount for determination by the city commission. Okay. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye as well. Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. as well. Okay motion passes unanimously. Okay we have two resolutions and add on and consent to deny them anyone want to move consent to agenda item one after the clerk reasons of the record. I'll move it. Second after she reads it but there you go. Resolution of the mayor's city commission of the city of South Plenty for the authorizing city manager to issue a notice of intent to draw from the public rich management of Florida insurance pool. Okay, I'll move the motion. I'll second it. I'll second it. The motion by commission Kyah second by the vice mayor. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll please. Yes, commission Kyah. Yes. Commission and Cory. Yes. Vice Mayor Boni. Yes. Mayor Fernandez Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I don't pass this for Thank you if you can read item two, please it's item two It was a city commission of the city of South American Florida I'm proven a proposal and project agreement with J&M engineering PC DBA M&J engineering to provide design services for the parking lot Improvement projects on the park and I'm not to see $13960 Thank you for the, are there any questions on the side of the banter? No? I do, of course. Mr. Kairi recognized. No questions for the director. You don't mind? Mr. Director, good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Quinn. Can you give us what the intent of the design? Like what is it that we're trying to do here? Yeah, so a number of things. The first is the resurfacing, restriping, marking, things like that for the parking lot. Lighting is a very important factor in this project as well. There is currently no parking lot lighting. There is a safety concern at the moment. So lighting would definitely improve the parking area. Directional signage is part of this project. Traffic commy devices. signage as part of this project traffic calming devices as you come in on 58th Avenue and you enter the part we did informally put some you know speed humps things like that but we want to make that a little bit more formal so traffic calming devices I'm asking that the consultant look into drainage improvements doing their surveying seeing if there's any drainage infrastructure that we need to take advantage of in this design study. So that's included accessibility upgrades. If you look at the, for example, the ramps where you enter into the plain fill, those two ramps are not ADA accessible. Signage regarding handicap accessibility, things like that, how people get out their car where they're parking at now. There's curbing that blocks, their doors when they get out their car that make no sense. So we're actually looking to that aspect of the project. The entrance of the park is blocked at the moment. I want something that draws people attention, that really opens people eyes up and really, you know, makes the park look good as soon as you walk in. So rather than that, 10 foot fence when you're walking in, some sort of marquee, entrance gate, marker, or whatever it may be as they come in. And last but not least, I'm asking the consultant or part of this project is to Look at all the unofficial parking that's taking place in the park right now Designating that as parking scene where there's opportunities to expand The parking capacity but do it in a very formal and official way people are parking on You know the grassy areas the parking along the fence. I'm looking to see if we can make that more official. We currently have 92 parking spaces there. If we take a very less aggressive approach, we can go from 90 to about 35 more parking spaces of increased to 125. If we take a very aggressive approach, we can go 60 more parking spaces, which will take it up to 150. So again, all the informal parking take a very aggressive approach, we can go 60 more parking spaces, which will take it up to 150. So again, all the informal parking that's currently taking place now, I'm actually in the consultant to look into making that official and just redoing our entire parking lot to make it more safe, accessible and usable. Thank you. Commissioner, where are you recognized? I was going to ask along with that entrance, I know that the sidewalk currently ends as you approach the gate, and there is an pedestrian entrance there. Is that part of the design plans to finish the sidewalk and create a pedestrian gate? So I've asked them to look at all accessibility issues entering the park within that parking capacity and going onto the actual plan field. So that will be a product of their work school. So that sidewalk that you're speaking of how we can make that more safer, how do they get in, ingress, egress, things like that. So that will be a part of their school. Okay, and this is a wish list item. I mean, I know no matter how much we increase the parking, it's really like a behavioral problem, I think think on the most part. Like every kid that's there, two parents come from different places from work to go and meet the kid. There's two cars for every kid. You know, you're never going to have enough parking. But if we're doing this and there is any opportunity to work with the school for excess parking, that would be amazing because again, no matter what we do, I mean, I do want to optimize, I do want to create more spaces, we're not going to have enough parking there. So anything, if there is anything we could do from a design perspective to even prepare for sharing the space, we're talking to them about it. That would be a great opportunity to do it since we're only going to have one shot when we when we redesign this. Understood we'll do. As you may not be aware of when we have games on Saturday soccer game tournaments things like that we use it we do use these schools parking lots so we have a pretty decent relationship with the principal and things like that so we've have used it on the past when you first come up 58th the teachers parking everything's like 15 spots right there then if you go further you know towards the east, there's the big parking lot that we used in the past. From our experience, folks just don't like walking all the time. I was going to suggest to you. I think my piggyback on Commissioner Corey's point, Mr. Director, I think the opportunity would be to envision where we would want to add parking that would be adjacent to our parking apron on their campus. I mean, I think the physical plan that school should change over time, likely will change. And so we can identify a way to integrate some parking that would work well with our existing parking apron that could be shared parking for both facilities. Beyond what they have today, and that's on the east side that's not accessible. That would be at least a good kind of visioning some element to this whether it's executed in the near term or not. Understood. Okay. Any further questions? Thank you for your presentations, sir. Thank you. Okay. Can I get a motion? I'd add them to. Do we have one? I move the item. Is there a second? I'd add them to do we have one I move the item is there a second Okay, so motion by commissioner Corey a second by commissioner cia madam clerk if you can call the role please Yes, commission a cia commission Cory. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I don't pass it's great Madam clerk I skipped over n1. Do we need to have you read that into the record? We don't need action on that doing no Okay, just notice I can read I'm three please We don't need action on that. Do we? No, no action. Okay. Just notice. If you can read, I'm three, please. It was the mayor's city commission of the city of South Maine for improving the reduction of curbside recycling to five weekly pick up of the rights and the city manager to negotiate an dispute in amendment to the interlockwork agreement with Miami Day County Department of Solid Ways Management for curbside recycling services. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Madam Vice Mayor, I believe this is your item. I feel like it introduces. Yes. We've had various discussions on the effectiveness of the recycling pickup. How much is actually getting recycled? Are we seeing a benefit? And is that benefit commensurate with the soaring costs, the continuously soaring costs of having the additional recycling, well recycling in general and you know to compound that the weekly recycling. I'm proposing that we go back to every other week. It just, I don't see where the cost benefits us as residents. I understand and I do hear when people say, well, if you recycle every week, you're more responsible about recycling. I don't know that that's a case. I think if you are an avid recycler, you will recycle and if you're not, you won't. But adding kind of insult to injury on a compounding scale when it comes to costs is not feasible in my eyes for our small city. So I'm proposing that we go back, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry spoke really eloquent on, and it's really what I believe as well, is that we need to encourage more recycling by cutting it back one day per week or once every two weeks. It shows a message that we're not for that stuff, and I think that we need to be more progressive and we need to continue to do that. In my household, and maybe I'm an outlier and I don't know that, but from my personal opinion, and pretty much anybody in my neighborhood recycling is a big thing. My recycling bin is full every week I talked to the city managers like well you can always order another bin But I think that you'll see that a lot of people are recycling and it's continuing to improve I think we need to do a better job and we've had questions with our county to see how we continue to improve that marketing wise in the city as well. So I would tell you that I'm in the contrary, I think that we just need to have more people recycling and do a better job of communicating what's recyclable and how do we expand this. So I'm going to vote no on that. Okay, I just, I mean, before we get into debate, because I have some questions, and so let's just take questions, and I'll recognize you to address this comments. That's okay. Okay. Commissioner Corden, did you have something you wanted to ask or make some comments on the item? I just wanted to make some comments. Absolutely. I'm gonna ask you to hold those for a second. I just wanna follow up on some questions. Mr. Manager, what is the term of our current contract expire with this recycling company? I'm going to have to see if we would, John, you remember exactly the end date. We had an extension. The county was going through. I thought it was March of 2025. If that's... Yeah, I have to double check, as I just want to give you a bad info. The county is going through a recilitation. Of this contract currently. Correct. And this item is going to be going to committee. I'm hearing pretty soon at the county and then commission. So they do it by zones. So we're kind of awaiting that and that will trigger a a new contract But I because of that there were extensions provided and I don't remember the exact date It's so to either you or the director just in terms of that solicitation process. Do we anticipate it's gonna close? Before our budget process concludes So to the county they're supposed to go to the commission tomorrow Not not not commission John just committee committee. Yeah, that's not tomorrow They're supposed to go to the commission tomorrow. Not commission, John. Committee? Committee. Yeah, it's not tomorrow. I just going to go to committee. I heard next week. So they only go to commission. Yeah, they only have one county commission, which is the 16th of this month left. So before they break it out. So I just want to get a sense of the schedule, because, again, speaking to cost escalation. Right now it's moderately more expensive. I just curious to see how much more expensive this could possibly get after that solicitation is completed. So we, well, we may or may not have an idea by September, Mr. Manager, Mr. Director, about where that cost could end up. On the recycle we will give in what I was told as far as that timeline. On the tipping fees and things like that, that's going to be a little bit later. We have no, that's not something we can opt in or out of. We're in that system either way. But from a budget standpoint and populating that into our budget. We may not know till September. Last time we didn't know till October unfortunately. But again, we can debate the merits of recycling or not, just in terms of what we have to do, waste is position as a main date, recycling is kind of optional, for us at least, right? Okay. Okay, so hopefully by the time we get back into our budget process, we'll have at least some cost information on the recycling aspect of our solid waste program. Yes, and there's also a 3% cap on that to increase. A 3% cap on the increase to households, on the increase under the contract. The increase under the contract. Okay, but that contract is expiring. So is that cost cap continue? I don't know the terms, because the item hasn't been made public yet. And it'll get our hands on it quickly. If it is gonna go to committee next week, then we'll get our hands on it pretty quickly probably by the end of the week potentially. So we'll know what those new terms are. Okay. If we can, I just like to get some information on what those terms are. As we, as kind of real time as we find out, if we can Mr. Andrew, kind of get that to all of us that appreciate it. On the same token, or by the same token, have we gotten any information from this provider about what is actually happening with the items that are recycling and how if they're actually being recycled or diverted into our landfills? The county had, and we had the representative from the county here that discussed it and her statement was everything. But she's not, with all due respect to that person, she's not aware of what's happening in the solid waste stream, at least as I understand her position. Well, it's their program. So they're the ones that oversee the program. But I'm saying from the department, I mean, that's honestly where I wanna, you know, are Mr. Reese is equivalent at the county who kind of oversees the handling of the waste dream. That person was a derm employee from not mistaking. She is a solid waste employee in charge of the recycling program? Oh, she is. I'm sorry. I'm just saying it was, yeah. I'm mistaking. I thought it was someone in another department. I'm saying that we brought her purposely for that to hear from the county at that time. Her comment that day was everything that gets placed in a bin that is recyclable gets recycled. The problem is a contamination, right? And so when it gets contaminated, then you have the big drop off on what gets recycled, right? I'm sorry. Do you get a number? Yeah, and different places have different contamination rates, right? Different cities. And it's part of an education process to educate folks that maybe not put things in that like plastic bags. It'll impact contamination. So. OK, but I just want to, let me just add what I want to want to be. And again, if you can bring back some information again, get them to reaffirm this. The horror stories I hear is we put all our stuff in the bin, it can be perfectly clean, right? Set aside the contamination issues, I know that's a problem, right? But at the end of the day, if there's no market for buying the, I know it's being recycled, right? There's no market for the plastics, there's no market for the cardboard, there's no market for the cardboard, whatever's getting into that bin, right, ultimately it's getting land-filled. And so what I'm hoping to understand is, yes, it's being recycled, maybe it's being sent to a seller, a buyer who's buying an embalk and paying the county pennies on the dollar for that trash and making, you know, a 10% markup, but they're only selling 15% of that entire waste all, and then they're just disposing of the rest to make their profit. So what I want to understand is really what's happening down the line, not just when they sell it to a third party, but is it really, you know, you used to get into China overseas or the Philippines, you see all sorts of stories in the news about, you know, stuff getting washed up on shores there. I mean, for a long time, it feels like recycling the U.S. was basically off showering our waste, right, as opposed to landfilling it domestically. I just want to understand, because again, I want to encourage recycling, but I want to do it with my eyes open. And because it also, the other educational part, it's not just how we dispose of it, but understanding that we buy as consumers, creates a market for that stuff, so they can get reused. So I just want to make sure that I'm being, a responsible public servant and advocate in that regard and be on inform people how to do it correctly, also how to buy correctly so that we actually are creating the markets, right? In our own procurement practices, so we talked to Mr. Gulik about it. I mean, I know that at the state level, there was not a real strong market for glass products, but a lot of the glass aggregate was being used in actually as part of the roadway aggregate for repaving. And so the state was doing some things on that front to kind of encourage the reason of glass. Again, lots of, I'm not an expert in any of this information, but I do want to just get a window into what's happening on the back end. And so I would ask for the benefit of that information, Madam Vice Mayor, my preference on this item would be for us to kind of give staff the time to get a sense of where we're going to be from a contract perspective here Under the new provider, whoever that is whether it's coal stole who's doing the work today or whoever else the county selects So we have a full cost picture going forward. We're not just looking at the I think it's a 50,000 differential today And maybe get some more information about what's actually happening with that way so they're supposed to taking action to make this decision today. I, I, I hear you. Yeah. Do not disagree, but I would rather. I would also like to know now if there's any price point where we step away from the ideology and step into the practicality. If the answer is I don't care how much it costs us, raise our taxes, don't raise our taxes, take it away from the plans, whatever it is. If we're not willing to make that decision, then I don't feel that it is fair to our staff, to ask them to do the legwork. If we're gonna sit on, I don't care, I'm gonna recycle every week anyway. You know what I mean? So I'd like to know kind of how Commissioner Cory and Commissioner Kaye feel about it because I don't want to waste our staff's time more, any more of their time. You know what I mean? Yes, Commissioner Cory. So if we were to discover that none of our recycling is actually being recycled, I think the board and it's a very practical mindset would not want to continue into their cycling program. If it became cost prohibitive where we were paying just very, very excessive amounts, we could consider something like that. I've actually reached out to the city as well and I might try to get a little bit more detail on this but I was even considering the idea of maybe bringing that in-house right now we can't really see much on our own metrics on how we recycle. I spoke with public works. They said they might not even need to buy a new truck that would just have to maybe get two new people to staff. We would actually be able to potentially collect their own recycling, measure that collection, maybe even measure the contamination, maybe get better at recycling than the county. I know parts of Broward have like 10% contamination rates, but what I wouldn't wanna do, this thing, what it concerns me, here's obviously you have the $50,000 cost saving. Some of that's a cost transfer because people will throw more trash away, which will go into tipping fees. So it's not a perfect $50,000. Of course, that could go up in October. It's a consideration we're all considering. But if we do put more pressure on the landfills, it is gonna push up the tipping fees much quicker. We know that land third highest greenhouse g after fossil fuels and fo it's just a it is a real concern. I think in our city definitely has a green mentality, green forward mentality. So I do think that we'll try to hold on recycling, but maybe there's a smarter way for us to do that And that's what I always love about you bringing these items forward is maybe we can find a smarter way to do it because I don't think anybody In the county has even pleased with with how waste management's going right now And we as a city if we have the ability to do it better Smarter, you know, that's really what our residents are looking for. That's why we're incorporated. So just to the thought. Chris, you got it? Yeah, just walk quickly to high to that. I've met three or four companies just in the last six months that we've been doing a lot of tech subjects and a lot of things like that. There's a big push in this world for manufacturing to recycle a lot of the products that are being recycled. They add some type of resonance that converted for tires for different materials. So it's continuing to involve. Obviously it's really capital intensive and it's going to take a while to get there, but it's moving. So I just to dress your comment. So I would encourage you guys to read a book all the end of the earth. Okay, it's not in the particular section. It's not a light read. It's not a light read. It's not a light read. I write it as an audio book. I listen to one along Drive Home from Tallahassee. And what I will tell you is the most cynical part about recycling in some ways is that it's an invention of the American Pertullian Manufacturers Association. Right? Because they quickly realized when they were going to create a consumer culture around disc disposable items, they thought people might one day wake up and say, where was all this trash going? And so my concern is I want to encourage a culture of reuse, right? Once one of the three yards, but I also want to be going, eyes wide open that it's not something that's going to happen unless we're intentional about it. And so to the extent that we as a small city can begin to understand what's actually happening with our waste room and shed some light on it, whether we choose to spend the incremental $50,000 to try to make those practices more effective and better, but the choice we have to make, but I don't want to make that decision without understanding what's actually happening. Because again, my general default is we should be encouraging more recycling. But I'm not so naive as to say that there's not a world where, you know, for producers of plastic items, the profits in creating new plastic items is much higher than the profits that may exist in recycling or creating recycled plastic items. So, hopefully that addresses your concern. I think it's great that you say that because I think fortunately for a lot of us we're idealistic about recycling and your comment shows at least that you have listened to the audiobook that tells you the reality of what I've heard from people in that industry. So. Let's figure out if it's, I just want to figure out if it's really a fairytale or there's really something we can do there to make this something that's viable for our society. So anyhow. So what are we holding? So yeah, we're not going to get the answers from asking anybody on our staff to go do that. Right? You We're not going to get the answers from asking anybody on our staff to go do that right like you go You don't get those answers tonight because they're going to be fed from the same place What I've seen other commissioners in the county do and maybe we should do ourselves is really do a tour I saw a commission. I know but we don't we don't it's up the problem with the tour Commissioner guys you don't see we see what we see the collection process. We see how it's processed We don't see where it's sold and where it's sold, whether that's actually put into a process where it's reused or where it's actually just discarded by that third party. And so I think that's where we're going to understand what's really happening in this process. It's not that I take the comments of our colleague at the county on their face that, you know, everything they're collecting, they're selling to a recycling vendor who believes there's a market, but the truth is, is there really a market once it's sold to that person? Or are we just really just redirecting the waste? So look, this isn't incredibly, I mean, again, I don't, we're living a moment in our county where how we handle our trash and our waste is of the paramount importance, right, to our little region of the world's continued growth and evolution. And if we can help create a window into how what is happening or what is not happening, I say we take full advantage of it and I know it's an imposition on our staff, but we were last year talking about Ignoratoria when all growth in this county because if we can't figure out where we dispose or waste. That's the kind of related impacts that this issue has on our ability to kind of grow as a city, as a county. I for one would love to figure out what's happening. We have, we're in a position where we're privileged to ask these questions and you know I'd like to ask them to see what answers come back. All right. Okay. So it would be would you have any objections to tabling this item and bringing it back in the context of our first budget hearing with information from the city manager on the laws that we requested. That works. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okayrd agenda. Okay, anything else for the good of the order, colleagues? Nope. Okay, seeing no further business before this commission. We've just had an item. Yeah, I don't know. Oh, thank you. Yes, yeah, see. Yeah. We have a resolution to move our meeting from July 16th to July 18th. Any concerns about that request? I move the motion. I move the motion by Commissioner Cain. Second. Second by the vice mayor. Madam Clerk, do you need a roll call vote? Yes. Okay, please go ahead. Yes. Commissioner Coring? Yes. I'm from the Mayor Bloney. Yes. Yes. I don't pass its order. Great. I can see no further business before this commission. We'll stay that adjourn. Thank you.