Madam clerk, are we set to go? Is everyone up here? We all good? Yes. Good. Everybody ready? Okay. All right. Great. All right. So, we're getting to start a little later. That's my fault. We had quite a few proclamations for our premeating tonight. So, let's get started with our regular commission
meeting. So, today is Tuesday, May 6th, 2025. Uh, it's almost 10 after 6 and um we'll call the meeting to order. Madam Cler, could you uh call the role for us, please? Mayor Growth, here. Vice Mayor Gonzalez here. Commissioner Amsler. Commissioner Huntington here.
Commissioner Samra here. Mr. Mayor, you have a quum. Very good. Let's do the pledge of allegiance, please. This is uh it doesn't seem to be the right one. This is June 3rd. Okay. Um All right.
So, let's take a look at our agenda and uh open this to the commission. Uh are there any additions, deletions, or withdrawals to the agenda before we move forward? Go ahead. Okay. Sorry. 14E I would like to have move up. Uh, since that's about the city
manager position, suggest take mine down to the very bottom and put 14 above because that's that's way more important. Okay, we'll switch those two. I was always also going to suggest I'm sorry, are we going by person here? Are
we Is that the only Well, I I don't I mean we have our consent. Uh and then we have only two two other items, one ordinance and one resolution. I think we'll be all right to get through to get through the the manager one be if we take that one next in order. And be sure
that the uh uh commissioner reports are heard tonight. Not like the LA not like the last two times. Well, we had our commission reports, but we'll get to them. Okay. All right. All right. So, right now I have uh switching 14A with 14E so we can take the village manager
selection process first when we get to new business. Everyone all right with that? Yes. I would like to also move up the item related to the Australian pine since we have a lot of folks here. So maybe for um you know sake of time we
can push that up. So discussion item um let me get to it 14D move it to the very top and at the same time I would like to pull from the current consent agenda a few items as far so before we get to the consent agenda since the
Australian pines one is well it's it's very similar to our well it's not that it's similar to our ordinance is it deals with the things in our ordinance I don't know if we can kind of intertwine those and talk to them well that was going to be part of what I was I was going to suggest as
well. Okay. Um I think there's a few things to do related to what we have a discuss I don't know why we started at the end. That's why I'm just following on the discussion items especially. So I was suggesting since we make some changes here just to raise up um on the
on the list to start with the Australian pine so that we can give uh folks here the ability to stay through the night with us and then I'll go I'll start from the consent agenda. I would pull out item 10
C, 10D, and then I will pull uh the minutes, all of them, including um the ones for March and April. That's FG and H. Yes.
Yes. For discussion. So, and the ordinance number 11, which is where you were stating, I would suggest we move it into discussion. Um, and you know, in this case, we, as you suggested, I think it's a good idea to combine my item with
this ordinance as a first draft. I'm not a big fan of having first draft ordinances come to us without a dialogue first. So I would make sure that at any time and this is something we can regulate ourselves through policy but I
don't agree with putting ordinances for approval without having had the chance to discuss what's in them. Um so I would propose to pull that out into discussion and combine it with the Australian pines item which would go first.
Okay. So it would be 11A combining moved from ordinance to discussion combined with injunction with 14D. Yes. Okay, that's it. Okay. Um for Commissioner Amsler's um uh amendments is then we
have consensus. Yeah. Uh I see that these are a rather lengthy discussion. So I could see not hearing both of these items tonight and rather move them both to a workshop. That way we can give them the due diligence they deserve. Uh, I would not rather if we're going to move it out of ordinance off, I'd rather not hear both of these items, combine them
to a tree care workshop and let it be heard in a one public meeting. We can hammer all these things out because we could be here for hours with what we have to talk about. So, it's good you said that. I actually called the attorney to ask this procedural question right before um because I wanted to
propose that I I I'm all for skipping uh today's uh discussion. I think it deserves a time to be uh in a workshop as well. Um the attorney thought procedure was better to push it into discussion and then you know allows us
for us to discuss why this fits better in a workshop. Sure. And that was yeah essentially the conversation I think I had a similar conversation with Commissioner Huntington um is I guess the first question was does the commission want to
move forward with some type and some type of policy if the answer is yes and that's really why I my thought was to move it into the discussion or a brief discussion do you all want to move forward with something yeah some form of the ordinance combination of the two
whatever it might be and I I I think I think both commissioners are their points are well taken. It would probably be better suited for a um a workshop workshop very sle item on the agenda. Public can address it. You all have time to speak about it. Parse it out. give me
some direction as to what it is you want me to draft and I will do my best to do that permission and either you can have it on for another discussion or you bring it right
to first whatever Brad you said you we had till the end of the year right so we got standing in the air as to how we move forward with this workshop it's either parks and parkways takes both of these items on and they elaborate us so it's more of the format on how we see
this happening as well. Um I am all for if you guys are ready to decide this now prior to discussion for it to go to public uh to parks and parkways and come back to us and have a sit down at the same meeting. It could be a workshop
with us after as well. So have parks and parks way here make maybe a special commission meeting because by sunshine we have to and um have an up we certainly the commission probably don't want to just give it only to them and then I I I think that we need to be
involved um just because I know a lot of what I was hearing was concerns about the authority of the village manager in in his involvement or whoever is in that seat their involvement in in that. So I I certainly have no problem doing that. Um that's what the commission would like to do. So we agree there's two steps to
it. I just want to be clear as to what are we going to brief parks and parkways with? They have suggested that they yes to the discussion just to figure not to hash out the ordinance but just for you to have a procedurally what do you want to do with this ordinance moving
forward. You want parks and parkway to consider it first and then have a special commission meeting. Is that special commission meeting going to be just just the commissioners or a work I'm sorry I meant a workshop. Um do you want to have a joint work workshop with the parks and parkway board? Obviously
madam clerk would have to publicly notice that it's a joint meeting so we can buy some sunshine. That that was why I was saying I'm not sure it's appropriate to do it at this point in the agenda but you certainly can. But that's why I was suggesting maybe a discussion item just to see how it's
gonna what path it's well I mean I tell you in in the hopes of trying to just take care of it now. Um I would kind of foresee it as something going to Parks and Parkway having their comments on it and then planning a special workshop between the two groups. The most constructive thing was what Brad just mentioned is having a
joint meeting with Parks and Parkways and us so that way we don't have to have a back and forth month after month. we can sit down to the same table and have a discussion together and that would cut out a lot of lead time. I'm not trying to rush the process, but if if we have comments and they have comments, we go
back and forth back and forth. I mean, things get lost in translation. It's better to be face to face in a in a room together and we don't prohibit in between and I don't know when they meet, but that if you were going to have a joint meeting with parks and parkway board, that doesn't
prohibit them to meet on their own agenda and have private, not private, but have a discussion just among their board members so they're prepared for it for their joint meeting with you. So, so why don't we why don't we do it this way then? Why don't we plan for that meeting to be with this commission and with the
parks and parkway board and in the interim we'll provide the ordinance that has been drafted to them to see if they can pull anything that they would see useful from that or provide comments on it so they're prepared. But I also would like to give uh visibility for residents to participate in park and parkways come
if this is going to be the way in which they will participate. Time is of the essence in terms of letting them know when this meeting is going to come up what are the materials that are being revised so that everybody can kind of bring their own thoughts to it. That's why for me the first workshop was
internally I don't think we needed to stay there as commissioners listening to the arguments. there going to be back and forth as to what people think it's right and what people think it's not and that's the purpose of having just an independent workshop and then once that's sort of landed somehow somewhere
and and again we're not prohibitive to be part of that um if it's more than one then it'll have to be noted publicly uh but it's not going to take one meeting so I think just send it in now uh you know it's going to get okay what do I do
with this the idea is that people know this is happening when the meeting is going to be there. There's have been discussions about adding I mean I presented a scope of work as a draft with some of the things that were brought up and there's other concerns I need to you know in terms of treatment of the soil and so this is the
opportunity we got to give people time to lend with their ideas to the meeting so they can contribute um and then they can come up uh with proposals that that was my so I I want I didn't want to rush it into one month it doesn't have to be
the next meeting um it might take two three months months. I don't know. We have time. Well, when would you would you be proposing a date, I guess? So, for me, the first thing is to advise administration to go ahead and let parks and parkways know that we're lending
this on them, providing with all the materials and then due diligence in terms of communicating residents when the meeting's going to be, which I would push it for next month. So, that if the meeting is next Wednesday, again, I don't know when the next meeting is, Pamela, you can let us know.
here. Okay, that's fine. March March 28th. March. Well, that happened already. May 28th. So, May 28 would so we we have some time. Um, so that could be an opportunity. This could be the first meeting with people can come and bring
their ideas and then that will be the maybe you need two meetings, you know, maybe you need three, I don't know. So the idea is that by the time it comes back to us what I'm saying is that you guys have already met hash out your concerns and bring both and say listen most of people inclined this but we also
think this is considered a consideration to have you guys are the parks and parkways board um at that those meetings I don't think it's necessary that we're there if anything I think it's better when we're not so people can come and freely speak as they wish and then once
it lands here then you know you guys can be part of it as well of Of course, and we can have a separate workshop of it. So, so maybe the best thing would be to have parks and parkways look at it. We'd get kind of an update at the June regular commission meeting and then we can plan on a date from there to see if
we're ready to set up a date by that point. Does that make does that make sense? So, you will notify a date at the next commission at the next parks and parkways meeting, which is the 28th. You will communicate a date call for this workshop.
See that? That's why we needed to. No, I know. I But I'd like I'd like to get us past the item because I don't want I don't want to leave this to the end of the meeting, you know, and then be rushed to to approach it. Together with the together with the SOP that the uh that the Let me try that
again. The city commission is directing the parks and parkway board to cons to take the draft or uh tree preservation ordinance conduct a review propose um whatever whatever modifications,
changes, additions, deletions, whatever that you feel is is appropriate, you know, in the best interest of the village. also to because just so you know that part of the tree city uh requirement is that there's also a a complimentary policy that has to be
entered by created by the village. So any recommendations with regards to a policy regarding tree removal, soil remediation, what whatever it might be that you all feel is appropriate and then report back to the commission in June as to whether or not you're
prepared for is it a joint workshop that you're looking to do for a joint between the parks and parkway board and the commission which would obviously be publicly noticed where you could all have a group discussion and parse out
what the ordinance should look like and of course with with public input at your meeting as well as that workshop. You think I'm going to remember what I just said? I'm not going to remember what I just said. I'll I'll I'll put something together and um what I will do is I'll
I'll distribute it to I'll distribute it to you, Madam Chair, and Well, actually, I'll distribute it. Never mind. So, make it quick. Yeah. Great. Thanks very much. control the support of the ordinance the SOP which is the policy uh Bradley was talking about. I mean uh I think that
those are the elements and then you know they can discuss to add whatever they see fited. Okay. Excellent. And with your permission I will provide backup that was provided. Yes Huntington please do. So okay it has all that information
so they can parse out what they All right. Perfect. I will share also um Anna with you all the documents I I I received um with the parks and parkways as recommendations. I mean I have a lot in in in my plate in terms of feedback I
got uh that I think it's relevant uh in case you know this from organizations but also uh to reach out to them to see if they can assist. If I had asked just provide it to me and I'll it to I will. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. So then
with that having now been resolved that's going to remove 11A from our agenda for this evening as well as 14D. Okay. Um I think uh Mr. Mayor, I'd also like to pull uh if I if we have consensus the poll of reports of item
nine to the bottom of the agenda 6:30. We've already lost 30 minutes. We uh we're going to run short on time here and there's other press pressing matters. So, I'd like to remove the reports to the bottom of the meeting. I mean, I'm
I'm fine with that. You got it? Are we okay with that? We're moving the department reports to the bottom. Sounds like yes. Yes. Good. Okay. All right. That's what we're doing. Um All right. I think that's everything and I've got copious notes here hopefully
that I will continue to get it right. So, do I have a motion in a second to approve the agenda as it's been amended? Motion to approve. All in favor? I I Okay, great. Um All right. So, let's uh move on to our uh only presentation for this evening. Um it's with Moren
Pentland. Is she with us? Is she on Zoom? Oh, all right. Hi, good evening. Hi, Marine. How are you? Terrific. How are you all doing? Great. Thank you very much. So, we are uh we are up to your item when we're ready for your presentation whenever you'd like to get
us started. Terrific. Um this is going to be a fairly short presentation. Um I'm going to just take a look at if you could switch to page two, the presentation. Uh page two. That's perfect. Um, so what we're
recommending this year is to renew with Florida Blue with a 10.7% increase with no plan design changes. Um, reason being, um, as you might recall last year, and I know some of you are newer, um, we had a pretty high increase. And
in order to bring that increase down, we went from a $2,500 deductible to a, uh, $3,500 deductible, which was a pretty substantial uh, change for the employees. So this year we're recommending that the village uh renew
with the increase at 10.7 with no plan design changes and maintaining the benefits exactly as they are. Um we did look at other options this year. Uh ABMID came in at a 44% increase. NHP came in with a 26% increase and that's
over our current uh premium. Sigma Etna and Florida League uh not a good fit. uh Sigma and Etna does not they do not quote in this space. They would uh typically quote a self-funded quote for small group but they will not quote a
self-funded group for municipalities. Um and then of course we went to Florida League and this year in and year out they're just not a good fit. They've declined to quote due to non-competitive bids. So basically we're in a situation where um the employer the
the village would absorb $18,000 increase for next year. The employees will not absorb any increase for employee only. Uh that is because we the village pays 100% for employee only
and we only have one employee who has employee children and they would receive a 10.7% increase in their payroll deduction. But again the employees won't see any of this because the village pays 100% of the of the singleonly premium.
Um, we can go into more detail, but typically we would do a long presentation and show you all the different options and the different benefit designs and you'd have a decision to make. But basically, we are in a we're kind of um we're kind of in a a one and only option for our our our
coverage for next year for June 1 effective date. Moren, thank you. So, um, is there anything else you'd like to present to us before we go ahead and open up to the commission for any questions they may have for you? Nope. That's that would be it. Okay. So, I'm
going to go ahead and just ask the commission if uh if if they'd like to ask anything of you based on your presentation and the materials that we received. Um, but I it sounds it sounds to me and and certainly feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me out of all of the options that you
pulled um and and investigated to determine if you could save any money outside of that 10% increase, there were really no no better savings plan in a That is in a nutshell. Exactly. Okay. Um All right. I'll go ahead and open it up to the commission for any questions they may have for you. Moren, thanks so much
for uh for being here with us this evening. My pleasure. Any questions? I have any questions? No. Marine, I have one question. Could could you expand on uh you said that Florida League declined a quote because a lack of competitive bid. Is that a lack of competitive bid on our part or on their part? Can you
No, it's on their part. So, uh because of the size and the benefit, uh they they first they don't offer a a deductible at 3500. So, when they're coming in at a $2,500 deductible, their cost structure is just not it's it's
it's far too high. Their their c they their rates are not competitive with um with with where we are with Florida Blue and they're recommended. I did send the email to u the village manager and they recommended that we go ahead and renew with Florida Blue. They said there's
there's no way they can touch those rates. And we and even if they even if they could get competitive, which they they have not been for years, every time we've gone to them, they've been they've not been able to deliver um a quote to us, but they don't even offer a $3,500
deductible. So, um it's just not it's not a good fit for us costwise. it it's they're they're they're going to come in much higher than what we have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for expanding on that. Sure. I have a question. So, basically, we're
left with no alternative, but Florida blue. That's it. That's correct. And a 10.7% increase sounds high, but in the small marketplace, it's actually it's it's not bad at all. last
year if I don't I don't know if you recall we we started at 23%. Yes. Um so it's it's it sounds horrible but it's really in in in this market in this small group market it's not bad at all. And for what you're saying we are
taking the hit as uh the employer not the the the employees sort of I we're it's an 18.7 across um I mean 18.2 two across the board the 18,000 increase. It's just
that because none of you really don't have anybody enrolled in employee spouse, employee children and family. You only have one employee. But if they were enrolled, they would also be getting a 10.7% increase in their payroll deduction. Um, but the employee, as I
said, they're they're they have a zero uh payroll deduction. So, they're not going to feel any pain whatsoever. It's just the the employees who would have enrolled in those other tiers will get a 10% increase. Yeah.
So so to clarify that there is one employee who's enrolled in employee and family and they would be getting a 10% increase. Correct. That that is correct. Yes. Okay. Uh, are there any other questions from the commission? Hearing none. Okay. Uh,
well, Meen, thanks so much for the information. We appreciate it. Um, I I'm sure we'll be looking forward to um to getting any more information from the manager that uh that we need um on the on the increase in in the renewal. So, thanks so much for being here with us, Moren. Thank you.
Okay. Have a nice night. Question. I'm sorry. Me, you still with us? Yes, I'm still with you. I I think we have one more question from a commissioner. Sure. What is the that one employ sorry the one employee that has a 10% increase? Is that a a lot of money or is that something that the if if we're paying
for all the other employees? I'm just concerned about the one employee that happens to be lucky enough to have a family that in a way is being penalized. And I wonder what's the difference. the contribution that the the employee is still receiving
about $1,000 from the village um towards the towards the contribution towards the premium and then they pay the remainder um and that and and every employee E+ spouse E plus children E+ family
everyone gets the same dollar amount uh contributed towards each tier and it's it's an a reasonable contribution. Um and and and typically and and unfortunately most employees are seeing those types of increases to their
payroll deduction. So if you were to change the contribution strategy, then you would have to change it for every tier. So you'd have to up it for e spouse, you'd have to up it for e children, you have to up it for family. Um and I don't know that you would want
to do that at this point. In other words, you can't just pick the one employee out and say, "Oh, you know, we're going to we're going to help you out. We're going to change your contribution." So, you don't get the 10.7. So, basically, any employee that enrolls in e spouse, e children, or family will
receive a 10.7% increase. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Right. Meen, thanks so much again for being with us here um pleasure tonight. Uh this was helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so that concludes our presentations for the evening and so
let's go ahead and move on to our public comment. Uh we will start with um folks here in the log cabin. Please just remember that um name and address uh is required for public comment and then it is limited 3 minutes uh and then we'll move on to Zoom after that. So anyone can get us
started. You know, it doesn't sound like it is. Are we going to have to maybe give you one of our mics if we can solve it? Uh, then we can't hear you on the Zoom. It's not Hello. Oh, there we go. Hello. Hello. Hello. I got this. Here we go.
All right. Howard Goldman, 11950 Northeast 6th Avenue, chairperson for the committee to um give over the resumes we've all agreed upon to for the next chief of
police that the interim city manager will make final decision on of the remaining um candidates. So, I'll just read to you a little bit
of how we've come to where we are today. Um, our inter city manager, Al Childress, put together this committee to review resumeumés submitted and agree to a final seven to be interviewed. The committee members are Ed Hudek, Coral
Gable's chief of police. Sam Behar, North Bay Village Deputy Chief of Police, Bob Anderson, Biscane Park resident, Trish Walker, Biscane Park resident, Joseph Fchett, Biscane Park
resident, and myself, Biscane Park resident. We were tasked to review approximately 20 resumes to come up with what we'd agreed upon would be seven
candidates to be interviewed with approximately 12 questions which we will be reviewing and handing in our recommendations to Al Childress. And that's where we are today.
Thank you. Okay. Thanks very much. Door's open. Blank time. Barbara Cule, 777 Northeast 111 Street. Um, just because the gentleman brought that up. Um, since you are going to be selecting a new village
manager, I hope you are going to let the new village manager make that final decision, whoever that may be. Okay. The tree ordinance. I've I heard what you said and um it
seems like you are have decided that we are going to have a new tree ordinance. I I'm not really sure what how this is going, but right now we have Miami date county tree ordinance with this which is an extremely
comprehensive ordinance that covers everything you could possibly want. It covers the people's yards, private property, and the swale. And it gives direction about planting trees, maintaining trees, selecting trees to
plant. It's ridiculous in my opinion to try to reinvent the wheel. There's absolutely no ne necessity. One of the things in the tree ordinance um that you had was um it said that you're trying to meet the specifications from the Arbor Day Foundation so you can apply to Tree
City USA. Well, when I was on Park and Parkways board, when we did plant trees and we were eligible to apply for uh Tree City USA, we cited the Miami date county code. We did Arbor Day celebrations, proclamations, we did
everything we needed to and we got the designation. So doing we do not need anything else to apply for Tree City USA. You know, also with Tree City USA, I would like to see us actually planting trees and not talking about
proclamations and being able to have the right uh signage and plant trees. Use your park and parkways board for advice. The fact that they were left out of this entire process is absolutely
appalling. I was at the meeting and they didn't even know anything about this. It's absolutely a disgrace that you have a board and it was completely left out. It was like, oh, and when they asked about making a comment about
this, Al Childress was there and so was Commissioner Huntington. And I don't even remember which one said, "Well, you can come to part to the commission meeting and you have three minutes to make a comment." That was so insulting. Okay, listen. The village
manager is supposed to carry out the policies of the commission. When you do your budget, you are actually setting a policy for what you want, what you want to spend. For instance, um the tree removal, you set a policy of $35,000 to
remove Australian pines and you had a policy where you set I think it was another 30,000 to plant trees. Policy should be three minutes already. Is it? Jesus Christ. I know I didn't get to the first
paragraph. Listen, you set the policy. You said $35,000 to remove trees. Those tree it probably would amounted to six, seven trees. That's what should have been done. It should have been done every year that it was
put on the budget from the old park and parkways board. You only did it a couple of times. Having taking out all of the Australian pines at once was an absolute nightmare. There was no thought to what
would be planted. No thought with how you were going to move ahead. And you were leaving these people with barren, desolate medians. And I can't think of anything more disgusting to do to residents who pay the taxes to live in this city and leave them with that.
Look, I'm gonna I'll pass it on to Gary. He can complain next. I don't need a musical accompaniment either. Um Gary Q, 777 Northeast 11th Street, uh just to underscore what what Barbara said,
um you don't need to reinvent the wheel. I looked at other cities and right off the bat found Edgewater and Sunny Isles I believe it was and they reference the Miami date code and they are in Tree City USA. Writing
something a tree ordinance which is incomplete is going to conflict with the Miami date code and it's going to cause confusion. It is truly unnecessary. more importantly would be
discuss to discuss and address a program for tree removal. We went ahead removed these trees right off the bat. People weren't notified. I don't know how many people I've heard from that were just flabbergasted that their median was
decimated and they didn't even know what was going on. even if it's a single tree, the adjacent homeowner should be notified. That to me was an incredible phaua. You know, we we have several
spaces now in 121st Street where people can drive across the median, even though we landscaped other areas to prevent that. We have decimated medians in front of people's houses. I remember a gentleman talking about I heard somebody else this evening talking
about the fact like on 119th Street they woke up and all their trees were well not literally woke up but you get the point and all the trees were gone and they had no notification whatsoever. One thought concerning the Australian pines was that we have to wait or we
have to apply herbicides. Actually, uh first of all, we don't need herbicides. I think probably you've received a lot of you've seen things in and neighbors as well as received emails from people objecting to it. And we don't have any Australian pines sprouting. It's it's superfluous. It's
just dangerous, totally unnecessary. And the idea that we have to wait is also false. There's immediate things that can be done such as the biggest problem with Australian plants is they create a very acidic environment. You can add lime to
mitigate that. You can also add organic ma matter or you can do both. So immediately you can start planting and in fact live oaks can be planted anyway like they did on Griffin where they took down the Australian pines and immediately came back and put in live
oaks and they're doing just fine. You know that this really isn't difficult. This is simple. Okay. It's it's just takes a little research and a little resident input can give some guidance in this but we don't need another
ordinance. Okay. This this is simply should be a policy of the village. A lot of cities quite a few do not allow residents to even get involved with planting anything in the swale or the
medians. Um, you know, Park and Parkway spent several years seeking grants and very dutifully going through the village, looking at the empty spaces and putting trees in and that's a program we need to continue
and continue with, you know, particularly when we're doing tree removal. Thank you. Hi, I'm Melanie Oliva, 590 Northeast 121st Street. I'm extremely concerned about the tree ordinance on the agenda. I know we're going to talk about it
later. No matter where the language came from, it was a choice to be put on the agenda as is. Residents have voiced that they'd like to be more involved in decisions that alter our environment, not less. This ordinance proposes the opposite, giving complete authority to
the village manager to cut down trees at any time without resident interference and would leave it up to one person to decide if wildlife or tree experts should be consulted. To reinstate our tree city status, we do not need a new ordinance. We adopted Dade's landscape
code 18A. We do we do need standard operating procedures which Commissioner Amsler has been working on and I think will be worked on in the workshops. Regarding those Australian pine next steps, I'd like to see them strengthened. Adding traditional structure nest to those protected, which
are nests that are reused every year and added on to that allows the birds to have more babies. Defining what urgent versus an what is urgent versus an emergency. adding that communication with residents should always be made
before tree tree removal, even if an emergency. Adding that wildlife inspection should only be done by wildlife experts or environmental consulting firms, not just arborists, not arborists. We have not yet studied the ramifications of losing 30 large
trees. Effects can include more flooding, a 10°ree temperature increase, habitat loss, and loss of carbon dioxide absorption. Bisgame Park mistakenly identified an urgent situation as an emergency. Human and wildlife residents
will be paying for the the price for years. I'm still confused about where the funds for the removal came from. Global warming is the emergency. Together, we must survive in a city that's flooding on a planet that's
overheating. New science shows non-native trees withstand heat better than natives. For 10 years, I've advocated that native plants are important. Why? Because they host native wildlife. These eight Australian pines host multiple native
wildlife species. Their benefits at as large trees outweigh their negatives. In my opinion, in addition to their value to our ecosystem, they provide property value. Let's put our energy towards inspecting these trees with multiple unbiased experts in an
effort to preserve as we agreed upon. Also, the Durm Garland 4 application proposed by Commissioner Huntington to treat the medians is unnecessary and dangerous. It's a harmful herbicide containing tricapir which is restricted
in Europe and Canada. I helped form a pesticide coalition, a pesticide-free coalition because harmful herbicides kill pollinators and birds. They cause dogs to foam at the mouth at the Miami Shores tot. And in North Miami, they actually
cause a public works employee to get cancer. Regarding the new village manager selection, I hope all commissioners have met with the new candidates. We need a manager who communicates with residents, listens to their concerns, puts them into action, and works with the commission in an
equitable way. I'd like to see a public interview of final candidates, allowing residents to be included. Thank you. Hi, I'm Ronald Coyle from uh 11524 Griffin Boulevard. Uh I was born and raised here. I lived here for 67 years
now, probably longer than all you guys put together. And I've seen the changes um in Biscane Park. Um and I have to tell you, when I was a kid, I couldn't
sleep in the morning past like 7 o'clock because there were so many birds, you know, making noises. It was literally millions of birds. I mean millions and millions of birds. And these pines, the mature trees that we're cutting down,
these are homes to birds. They And the birds come every year. It's it's not like one time they make a nest there. They make a nest. They have babies there. Their babies have babies there. They come back and have babies there. And it just goes on and on and on. And the the value of a mature tree
is exponential. And so when you cut down a mature tree, you're really making a big mistake because the tree is not a tree. A tree that has rot is good. And a lot of people think that the these casual rhinopines are short needles.
They're a non-suckering. They're not related to the invasive uh long needle pines. So they're they're not a menace. They don't spread. You don't see no uh shoots coming out of the ground. They're not spreading. And um these trees have
um a a strategy where they hollow out in the middle and everyone thinks, "Oh, they're rotten. Look at those burls." Well, I got pictures of all the trees they cut down on Griffin Boulevard and they were all solid rock and they were
all hollow in the middle. And what happens when the trees hollow in the middle? The wind blows it this way and that way and it doesn't snap in half like an oak tree. And oak trees break the oak trees. Hardly any trees were left standing after Hurricane Andrew. When you went down and got past Kendall
Drive on Hurricane Andrew, there were no trees left. Only Australian pines. They were the only tree left standing. And out of the 144 trees that we used to Australian pines that we used to have here, uh when the hurricane all the hurricanes came,
uh three of them blew down. And so this is a tree that's the guy that planted them actually what planted him as a break for hurricanes. He was the a super expert Griffin. His name was Griffing and he uh planted them to protect his
nursery uh down Griffin Boulevard. And so what happens is when you cut down all the trees and there's nothing left to blow down, guess what blows down? Your house. And you go, "Oh, these trees are dangerous. They're so heavy and whatever." Right? They're heavy. They stick up really high. And that that's
the ones that create cavitation and and make the the wind uh break so that your house doesn't blow away. All right. So, um I want to say something else too. You know, if you ever go to these places, like if you go to Disney World,
they don't plant the oak trees like the cookie cutter community. Uh every single tree is a oak tree. that you got to have variety and and and especially for bird species because not just one species of bird goes to this kind of tree, another
species goes to this tree and we've got all these oak trees. That's all we got. And um it it's kind of hideous that we're we look like a community that that is, you know, like out west, you know, like Silver Lakes and all these places.
That's all they plant is oak trees. And I mean, you know, the beautiful thing about Biscane Park, it's eclectic look, you know, it's the variety of the trees and we don't have that today. And uh I just, you know, I heard that the guy that cut down all them trees and got paid was it
$130,000 for them trees on uh 120, he paid for that new truck just on our job and did it in one week, you know? So, I mean, who's making the deals here? I mean, what kind of, you know, winner do we got that pays a crew of three people
in a truck $120,000 for one week's worth of work? I mean, does that add up? Is, you know, this, you know, to me, this is like Washington DC now. Biscane Park's turning into uh whatchamacallit and I don't know how many city managers are we on now. I was just wondering, are we up
to like is it nine or 10? Huh? In in 16 years, we got 10 city managers. I mean, it's not even averaging two years. We need continuity. Do you know that the first 40 years that I lived here, they had the same guy running the park? Just as a little bit of history,
you know, his name was Ed Edmund Burke. I think this is the recreation center's named after him. This guy ran this place and he ran it good. He ran it and it's just a little village and he handled it. One guy didn't need a whole bunch of
people. One guy ran everything and he did it for they he he did it for free for I think the first 25 years and then like the last 15 years they gave him a salary. So I mean you you can pay it's just like paying you you can't you don't
get good stuff by paying people a lot. You get good stuff by people having their heart in it, you know, and and and we need to have more of that, you know, and less of this professional corporate uh machine that you guys are cooking up,
you know, or have been cooking up. Thank you. Thank you. So, good evening everyone. My name is Yil. My home address is protected under the chart 119 on floral status. I'm the wife of ex chief mark steel. So I'm here
today as a citizens as a wife as a woman who refused to stay silent. I'm speaking today not as a legal expert but also and under my first amendment rights as a private student expressing my personal view and concern based on facts, public
record and personal experience. I brought flyers and search result to support each of my claim. I'm I'm going to talk right now today. So, does everybody know that my husband resigned in February 20? So, at that point, he
did he didn't have any investigation, nothing going on. If everyone need to know or clarify why he resigned, you can go to the March 4 commission meetings and everything is going to be very well explained over there. So saying this he
present his resignation he lived because he was not agree with many stuff that was happening here unethical. So without clean without any investigation look at what happened now. So following his resignation in two uh
in February 20. So in March 4 here in the commission meeting so the village of attorney announced an investigation into my husband basing on complaint from an ex officer Roberto Navaro. It's important to know that Mr. Navaro had
previously had investigated and dismissed under the previous city man administration. So with the case closed and agreed open by all parties and in Google I search and Mr. Bradley was working here at that time. So in my
opinion NSQ was needed to reopen this matter raising question about the motive behind this investigation never notified before to my husband. Furthermore as per Mr. bridle on the meeting uh March 4. He personally stated verbally in the
minutes 2 hours 59 minutes 13 seconds that in May in March six he was planning to meet an investigator so two days later who will be in charge in a neutral investigation against to my husband
regarding to this new inquire question. I would really like to know when we lost the meaning of what neutral investigation is supposed to be. How can investigation be collect neutral when
the same village attorney is the one choosing the investigator that is going to run that investigation? There is something calling conflict of interest. Is that exist in our law? Is it is it still exist in our law? So because the person selected to investigate the name
is Mr. Ricky Manglioni was the chief of police in Fort Lauderdale until he was separate on his duties. During the same period of time Mr. Bradley the village of attorney worked there as a legal advisor so working in the same workplace
department and I bring flyers. I'm going to give it to you if you if you need to clarify or watching with your own eyes. So I browse flyers tonight as I said because I don't just speak I bring evidence as I can see I'm the I'm the
only person here that have internet on Google. So as all what I said nothing here is classify info. It's everything in Google. After being previously request 17 my husband a notification that his law enforcement
was damaged. Ma'am is not able to be a police here in Florida anymore because this ma'am you you've exceeded your three minutes. I I have a question. No, no. When let me finish because this is interesting for everyone when when
his money are used in this investigation. You've had an opportunity that we've ma'am ma'am ma'am to hearing commission. Ma'am, excuse me. We have the courtroom rules here in the village here. If you want there's anything you want to provide to me part
of the record, ma'am. The investigation is going to cost $10,000. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am to that. Ma'am, ma'am, people here need to
know. Ma'am, excuse me. For five working and not being investigated just my husband because it's not convenience, ma'am. So, there is an investigation here for five hosting workmen. They are investigating just my ma'am because the purpose is to
officer. Officer evidence evidence. Ma'am able to talk because he's under legal restriction. Officer Officer this ma'am this this needs to stop. Ma'am ma'am we've given you an opportunity to speak.
The way that please please officer please. Ma'am ma'am I'm sorry I'm ma'am. No ma'am you've had you've had ample opportunity ma'am. Yeah, please do, officer. Please do.
Okay. Don't put me in a bad situation. Ma'am. Ma'am, we we need we need to move on with our our meeting. Please, officer. Officer. Oh, do you have any thoughts? Thank you, ma'am. I Yeah, I I understand. That's
fine. But that's we we have we have to move on, ma'am. We We provided you with an opportunity. We need to move on. Thank you. Good. My name is Susan Howell. I'm a resident of Miami Shores, 70 Northeast
101st Street. Um, I'm here to talk about a few things. I've spoken before about the birds in the trees and how concerned I am about the way that was handled, but I want to talk today about the tree ordinance. And what I really don't understand is you don't need it. You
have what it takes to already be registered a as a tree city and this is an additional thing that is giving more power almost all power to the village manager. And I really don't understand that. So, you're adding something that's taking away the transparency and and the
ability for the community to weigh in. And it's with somebody that we've seen if I don't know who the new manager will be, but there's very little to no knowledge about nature and trees and birds. And to give somebody authority without letting the community weigh in
and the residents who pay the taxes, I really I don't understand it. I've worked in public corruption my whole life and to me the whole idea of it just kind of stinks. So that's one thing. Second of all on trees I trees are so
necessary. They are necessary be because they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. They absorb the sun's rays. They cool. We are in a climate crisis. Whether you believe it or not. The world's heating up and it's flooding. And they also help the soil to absorb the water so there's
less flooding. And I know there is something out there to use the um herbicide tri I might be pronouncing it wrong but it's tricloair. Tricloare is limited use in other countries because it is dangerous. If you get it in your
eyes it can permanently damage your eyes. It can damage your skin. It can cause birdshell eggs to get thin. It can destroy insects. So, here we are as humans saying, "Let's throw herbicide on the soil that we've already degraded." And then we're going to blame nature
that we're that the soil's degraded when we're the ones that are degrading it. We don't need that herbicide. Leave the soil alone. Let nature and the worms and the beetles do what they're supposed to do. And I'm a nature lover. Every time I
see ibis pecking in grass, I wonder is it a grass that's treated with an herbicide or is it somebody like me who doesn't use any? I have a garden that flourishes. I use zero pesticides or herbicides. I use compost and nothing
chemical and my garden flourishes. And I agree with a gentleman that said when you do replace these trees that were taken it down in my view in just such a horrible manner. Um they do need diversity because birds come to
different trees. Birds eat berries. If you do the research you can plant things that benefit not just the neighbor, not just the people, but that bring in the birds into the bird city. It's really simple. And there's many of us out there that know how to do it if people ask.
But you have a council that, you know, I have to say, I mean, I think you're getting educated through this, but you didn't know and nobody asked. You were here to help. Thank you for your team. Rory Zean, 11800 Griffing Boulevard. Uh, this
ordinance, this proposal was kind of sprung on us. I found out about it over the weekend. Same time that they were cutting down a pine on Griffin who they said it was the county. I called the county today.
They don't know anything about it. They said they'd get back to me. I called at 4:30 right as they were closing. They didn't know. They still didn't know anything about it. So um in past Biscane Park has directed the county to fel pines on griffing. I know this because I
spoke to the superintendent of Miami Dade County. Duncan was his name. He has since retired. That was 20 years ago. We've been having the same debate over these Australian pines that have existed in this neighborhood for a hundred
years. No saplings, no damage. What? Yeah. Any tree can fall in a storm and they do and they will there. Why are Why is this hate on these Australian pines?
It makes no sense. Especially for people like Ron, like the cools, like me. We've lived here decades. Okay. So, this ordinance, it says interference. No person shall hinder, prevent, delay or interfere with
a village manager or their designate design or any agent thereof while engaged in carrying out the execution good word or enforcement of this article. So if this was in effect in
February and Melanie and Vicki called the manager and said, "Hey, hey, you were supposed to have these trees inspected." Oh, we did. They were lied to. We don't trust you. Okay? We don't trust you because you've lied to us. You
did this backhandedly. You did this in such a rushed fashion that we haven't even had a chance to catch our breath. We are still traumatized over what you did on Griffing in 2022. Okay. You got to keep your trees
in front of your house cuz I complained. Yeah. And I complained and I'm the crazy lady. They still have not replaced the tree that they fell in front of my house that I have videos was not rotted. Okay, so I think I've said enough. You've all
heard me on social media. Thank goodness we don't have the the the vilification on social media that we had when Macdonald Kennedy was here because
you couldn't say anything. You couldn't say anything against the commission or any decisions that you guys made without retribution from him and his husband. I'm so glad he's gone. I'm so glad to see people out here getting
involved because and this is not pleasant. I don't want to hear this lady, you know, with the scandal with the police and all that stuff. This my heart is racing. I probably won't sleep tonight. Okay. I don't want to be here. That's what you guys are for. And we put
you in such a responsible, important position. Just do your job ethically and and and listen to the hearts and the minds of the people that have been most affected by this
recklessness of of felling of all those trees in one fell swoop. You know, I'm sorry I got like dramatic, but I I can't help it. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Christina Lane. I'm at 11209
Northeast 8th Court. I've lived in Biscane Park for 15 years. Um, I'm very happy to see that we'll have a workshop on the trees and I'll be there. My immediate concern is the selection of the village manager. Uh, I understand. I
may be wrong. I've been told that the interim village manager, Al Childress, is a candidate. I'm not sure about that. Um, I'm here because I want to make sure that the candidates for village manager are interviewed in public. I would hope that the village commissioners will do everything possible to make the
interview process and selection process as transparent as possible. I've seen I don't know how many village managers um since I've lived here I know there have been several and while I know that there's a limited role that they play
and that there are parameters around what the village manager does I also know from very like personal experience and just you know what it is to live in Biscane Park that for a village manager character matters. Um, and so I would
ask that you include the residents as much as possible. My expectation is for the village manager to be transparent, to be honest, to communicate well, to have integrity. I seek a village manager with true leadership and vision. This
village needs and deserves a manager who will help usher our community into the future with a clear and bold understanding of our historic legacy, but also our inherent value and the importance of building a future that is
filled with resiliency focused on sustainability. a a community for our children and for our comm our our children to be proud of our our children to return to and to also continue to live in and
for our children to have a future in. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Hi, my name is Kate Davis, 12000 Northeast 11 Place. I'm also on the um sustainability and resilience board, but
we haven't met in over a year or more because we just do not have quorum. However, um residents as well as um one of the board members emails that came through um I saw that there was issue with the trees. So, I'm sorry I haven't
had enough time to review it, but I did look over it pretty quickly and I would request I heard that there was a workshop in the last speaker. Um, so I'd love to be involved in that. Um, and I just want to let the board know that I am available personally even though the
board isn't meeting or um, but I'm here to help in any way. I saw that the issue with the the night crown herring. Um, I'm an environmental consultant. That's what I do for a living. I'm a wildlife biologist as well as permitting. So, the
birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Act. So, your contractor should not have removed any trees that have these birds in them. I'm happy to do any inspections for free on behalf of the
village or assist with any type of any type of regulatory questions or permitting questions. One of the big um issues that why I came on the board was for tree protection. Um and we kind of started getting to that before the
before the board fell apart. But one of the issues I did bring up but never followed through with the um with the city that the manager was we had the I'm looking at my notes again. And this is kind of last minute for me, but we did
implement into our code reference to chapter 18A of Miami Dade County landscape ordinance code. So the tree ordinance in the village because we don't have our own should be following that. So one of my questions was is who
is implementing that? Because as far as I'm aware, we don't have staff on site arborist or landscape architect reviewing for that. So I didn't know if it was happening with the planning and zoning board and if it's not then how is that happening here in the village. So
the big thing with that is tree permits are required. Most of you know the village is is single family and there's ways to get around with getting tree permits but not if there's specimen trees. Um, but one of the things is the big thing for me is part of the
development that's happening here and making sure that the tree replacement is happening per the county code, per our code. Um, so you see these houses that are going in and they have certain requirements for landscape replacement that are required. Um, we may not win
the battle with the trees that are being removed on single families, but we can sure win the battle um with new development and making sure that the trees are replaced. But inside of that, that new ordinance that's trying to be passed is 100% conflicting with
that. So you can't dedicate tree management to the village manager. It has to follow the county and our code as well. So happy to go to the workshop. I'm happy to have sidebar conversations with any of you. I have lots of knowledge on the tree ordinance, but
just wanted to come um and offer assistance and my opinion on that matter. Thank you. Sorry, what was what was your name again? Kate Davis. Sorry. Kate Davis. Thank you, Kate. Kate.
Assuming the clerk has your contact information. She is part of our board of sustainability and resiliency. Thank you for coming. Bob Anderson. Bob Anderson, 11905 Northeast 11th
Place. I'm going to be talking about on for 14C on uh spending looking at possibly spending $30,000 a year so some of our residents can go over to Miami Shores to
go swimming. I looked at if we have $30,000 a year to be spending, we ought to be spending on our rec center has take a look at the recreation equipment that's over there that should have been replaced years
ago. It's falling apart. It needs to be we need to be start spending money on replacing that equipment that is so far be beyond its lifespan before somebody gets hurt, one of the kids get hurt. So, I'm against spending money into
another city until we solve everything in our rec center first. Thank you. Jamie Anderson, 11905 Northeast 11th Place. I just want to make sure I did understand correctly the tree issues are moving forward to parks and parkway
and then a potential workshop or special meeting. It's not a tonight thing. Correct. Yeah. Want to make sure. Okay. Art, thank you for your agenda item and I certainly hope you get support. You know, if commissioners get their
concerns and questions answered prior to the meeting, it's not just that the meeting is going to go quicker. It's going to be so much more efficient and so much more productive. I don't understand waiting till the night of the meeting to parse and dissect every
infantessimal aspect. You're doing you're doing yourselves a disservice along with everyone else. Look at last month the uh presentations alone. I think it was two hours they took. You lost the attention of the audience. Couple of people left.
You know, if the intent is yes, to inform all of us, I'm thinking the cliffnotes version will work just fine. We don't really need war and peace. Uh, as far as Miami Shores, I appreciate your efforts,
Veronica, but if we have $30,000, we have a rec center that I bet could put that 30 to extremely good use because unlike Miami Shores, where a small percentage of residents will go. Our rec center is hustling all the time
and so many things could use improvement. Frankly, I'd like to see all five of you much stronger advocates for our own rec center because every year it seems to get shortchanged. My only quick comment reference trees would be whatever gets
proposed, please be careful not to cross that line into micromanagement and government by committee because that's a really fine line that seems to be getting crossed. Thanks, more in the log cab before we move on.
Evening, Anna Deleon, 655 Northeast 115th Street. Um, I just am here on behalf of the parks and parkways board. I was chosen to come and just say we met uh this month and our we were wondering what the status of the our recommendations and report were and I
was attending to listen to hear I'm very glad to hear about the collaboration that the commission would like to do with us. That's kind of what we were hoping for as well. Um and we look forward to collaborating together. Our next meeting is May 28th. Um for the public if they're interested and then
like we discussed, we'll follow up um and go through that. And um as a resident and a person on the board, I just ask that you continue to keep us in the conversations when it involves our board. Um not just the tree placement, but any changes like the parks. I know
there's ongoing consideration and thought about what what might happen with the park complex. Um as well as the log cabin renovation that was discussed at the last meeting. Um we are now a group of highly motivated individuals and we're excited to move forward. So
thank you. Thank you. That's it for the log cam. We can move on to Zoom once twice. Okay. All right. Um Madam Clerk, do we have anyone on Zoom that wants to provide public comment?
If anyone wants to provide public comment on Zoom, please raise your hand and the clerk will ask to unmute you. Um, but not seeing any hands. So, madam clerk, I know we have a number of emails that are from residents that could not make it that wanted it to be read onto the record. Do you want to get started with that for us, please?
Thank uh Mary Benton to whom it may concern Commissioner Huntington added a proposed ordinance to Tuesday's agenda that not only appears redundant as Biscane Park already has a tree care
ordinance that qualifies the village to be a tree city USA but it has a it is a step backward for Biscane Park. This seems to have come out of the blue as ordinances are
usually workshopped and discussed by the commission which did not happen in this case. Even more disturbing is that the authority and power section would give the village manager complete authority to remove trees without notifying anyone
and would prohibit interference from residents. Given the importance of trees in com combating climate change, this ordinance is steep in the wrong direction and I urge the commission to vote no. Christina Lane, 11209 Northeast 8th
Court. Dear Biscane Park commissioners, I am writing to express my serious concern over the resident ordinance added on tonight's agenda regarding trees in Biscane Park. Specifically, I do not agree with the ordinance because it gives complete authority to the
village manager. There is no need for the ordinance to be added. Note that an ordinance such as this is usually given further process and discussion before being put into place, but beyond this, it is simply not
necessary. I am much more in favor of the next steps that were worked out with Commissioner Ansler in collaboration with the broader community. I have a very personal stake in this issue. As someone who was recently affected by the
fallen Australian pine tree on 113th Street in January, one might think that I am in favor of removing all Australian pines from Biscane Park. In fact, that incident affected my home and electricity more than almost anyone in
the surrounding blocks. It knocked out my power for two weeks and simply two days and forced me to rewire my house when the fallen pine caused an electrical short that went all the way into the interior of my home and
resulted in over $2,000 of cost. Yet, I took that opportunity at that time to do extensive research on Australian pines and came out in favor of keeping as many of these trees as possible in Biscane Park and doing all
we can to support the heron habitat. All this goes to say that I believe in the importance of community voices as well as research decisions. I disagree with this apparent power grab
in the latest ordinance. Again, there is simply no need to add this ordinance. Please reconsider. Thank you for filling these comments. Nancy Davis, 1927 Northeast 6th
Avenue. Good day. My name is Nancy Davis and I am a longtime resident of Biscane Park. I am unable to attend the commission meeting tonight, but I want to make you aware of my support for the movement to stop the decimation of the natural world in the park. I want to
emphasize the word neighborhood because I see the rapid change that has been allowed here in recent years. Biscane Park has traditionally been a small neighborhood in the middle of the mess of urban sprawl. Over the
years that I have lived here, there have been many fights against the sprawl, many of which I have been involved in. I realize that as time goes by, there are decisions that are made to accommodate
growth and human needs. I won't go into my actual thoughts about that, but I do understand that things change over time. However, the decimation of the natural habitat in this neighborhood is unconscionable. At the very least, I
believe that the commission should focus on what benefits humans and the natural world in equal parts. Letting people build zero lot line McMansions and failing trees that house wildlife only benefits greedy investors. More than
enough of that is going on here. Please think about the wildlife because of the long run. Humans won't survive without the other species that inhabit our planet with us. Our greed and comfort could not be more important than the merited other species that live
alongside of us. Thanks, Nancy Davis. Dear commission, our trees deserve better than being cut by the decision of the village manager at any time without resident input and with no recent
assessment of their health and the effects of flooding, habitat loss, shade and heat reduction. We do not need this ordinance that gives complete power to the village manager after to cut down trees at any time. the environment.
Thanks you for considering that. Thank you, Denise. Denise Barrows, mayor and commission. Good evening. I read through your proposed public tree care ordinance and assume this is your response to rather loud
public outcry when you cut down approximately 30 Australian pines. I don't think that nature loving population were necessarily commenting about the loss of Australian pines because most of us understand that
they are invasive and do not need to be removed. The problem with your past action was that so much habitat was removed all at once and without regard for the nesting night herand. This new ordinance sounds like
more of the same behavior. Government is best when citizens are involved. The residents and neighboring communities appreciate that the wealth of Biscane Park is its trees. Why not invite the public to participate rather than
attempt to silence our voices? I think you'll find that by working with the residents rather than against, we can achieve a stronger community that values our greatest assets, the trees. If you find it necessary to rewrite this
ordinance to include some of the wishes of the residents, I hope you will include a mandate for new trees to be at least 30% native and 100% Florida friendly as defined by the UFAS. Carol
Spugnik 1162 Northeast 1053 Moore Joe Moore. Dear commissioners, I choose to live in Biscane Park in part because it is a bird sanctuary and a
member of Tree City USA. I do not want to live in a concrete jungle. and want to live in a neighborhood that flourishes with wildlife, pollinators, and trees that support them. That neighborhood is Biscane Park. But as of late, it would appear that the village
is indiscriminately removing trees and wants to do so when there is wildlife actively roast roosting in those trees. I am opposed to the ordinance on tonight's agenda which would allow our village manager to decide when to cut down trees. It gives
sole authority to one person which I object to. It is also prohibits interference from anyone including us as residents who care deeply about our wildlife and canopy. Village managers come and go. We residents who love our
Biscane Park sanctuary remain. Miami Day County's urban forestry plan is in the works and a blueprint to achieve a minimum of 30% tree canopy coverage countywide to enhance climate resilience. Climate
change is causing more flooding in Miami and we must do all we can to protect our trees who are our most valuable resource in combating flooding and carbon in our atmosphere. While I value native plants, even non-natives are doing this work as
well as cooling temperature. Replacement trees will take many years to show us these same benefits when there is no need. I've also heard about potential garland for application in the medians
to treat the soil or stop Australian pine growth where they were removed. The herbicide possesses a dangerous risk to our health and that of our wildlife. Please seek alternatives to herbicide and pesticide
use in our village. They do exist. Please also make the village manager interviews public after a selection is made. We as residents are very interested to be part of this as it's such an important
decision. I would like to make a request um that my email be read as I am unable to attend this evening's meeting. Thank you for your consideration. Joe Moore, Biscane Park resident.
Yep. Okay. Thank you, madam. All right. So, can I make an uh a comment on the Zoom the link wasn't working. So, I just want to be um you know made aware make you guys aware that the link wasn't working. I
don't know if anybody else was trying to get in, but the link says June 3rd as the date. So, uh it took me a while to get in. So, hopefully we didn't get anyone in the middle uh not being able to participate. We got to make sure our Zoom is right. This is not the first
time it happens and people, you know, have have to have the ability to come forward and say what they need to say. Uh, Commissioner, it's a Zoom problem and I'm trying I tried to work it out, but I reposted the link in on the app and redid it in the calendar. It works
when you send me the link by email, but not everybody but I sent that back to the calendar. Okay. Same same. U, Jonathan, I have two two comments real quick in regards to uh something that uh Barbara said. Um, number one, two meetings ago, I was adamant that I
thought that the uh new manager should be the one selecting the new police chief. Uh, I said it here. Uh, some disagreed with me, which is obviously their prerogative. Um, but I was also informed obviously that our interim manager um has all of the powers under
the charter. uh and unfortunately although I think it's completely uh wrong for him to make that decision. I mean listen at the end of the day he may be the manager but until we have a permanent manager that person should be the one selecting. So that's my opinion. So I made it very clear in the last
meeting. Um so I'm still that's still my opinion. Uh and then a follow-up question to the our attorney. Um there were several folks that came here tonight that said that the Dade County uh tree ordinance was sufficient uh for Tree USA. Um so is it your position that
it is not or that it needs to be add something needs to be added to that? Okay. So what is your position on that? Okay. So looking at the C city USA website.
Yep. Viewed they they provide some sample ordinances is the direction I was given. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um so before we move forward with this I
think we need to come to a conclusion whether or not we it's sufficient because if it's sufficient then that you know it's going to move things along a lot faster. Stop by as it's been stated during this meeting.
very detailed. I I would have to do some more research, but I would imagine that it would meet the requirements of the city. The only other requirement that would be left for the village to do, which is the policy. Yeah. Um and but they mentioned several
cities that use the Miami date county ordinance and our tree city. Uh so, okay. Okay. Like I said, the tree the Miami day county's ordinance is very detailed. Okay. Proposed one and the proposed one
would still rely on the Miami date county or stat. So, well, let's find out. Thank you. Okay. Um, well, we're in the middle of commission reply to comments. Com comment. I just I know we're kind of having discussion about
the tree ordinance again. Uh, trust me, I understand that it could be sufficient what Miami Dade has and what we we uh, you know, adopt in our code, but I feel this is an opportunity to clean up our code if we're going to address trees and we're going to address the tree issue.
You know, if you put tree into MUN code, 19 responses come up. So, there are 19 different places where trees are addressed in our code. So, if you're a resident and you have to you have an opinion or you want to seek a idea what you want to do with your trees, there's 19 different places that it's talked
about. If we're going to do a tree or even if we just say have a tree ordinance that says tree ordinance, we defer to Miami Day County Code. If you look under the natural uh resources preservation section of our code, it just says Miami date county code. It doesn't say 18A. So, how is a person to
know we defer to 18A when we don't list 18A there? We just list Miami date county code. So, I think there's there's room for improvement. Even if we reference Miami County code for a lot of it because it is it is robust. I've been through 18A. It's robust, but there's there's there's room to fix it. If the
commission has the will to fix it, let's do it. If not, let's apply for Tree City USA right as we are. But I think we can we have an opportunity to leave it better than we found it. Good. Well, I'm sure that we'll get a little bit more into the tree the tree issues when we get to our workshop with with the parks and parkway and we'll
give everyone an opportunity to be heard at that time, too. So it'll be good to have another round of uh of public interaction and feedback when we get to that. I can say since we're already again we should have put this in the discussion that this is why because I think we have different views as to what
needs to happen next. But um if you ask me I think we were part of Tree USA before we were we fell out of compliance. We were because we had the the requisites at some point in order to apply for it with what we've got. I'm not disagreeing with you that the
ordinance might need a little bit of readjustment, but that was not the direction we gave the attorney. Um the direction was to work on tree USA um ordinance. So, do we need it? I don't think we need it. We didn't need it before. So, um I do look forward for
this workshop to put all the mindset of our residents experts, you know, that kind of provided their their hours for free to come forward and let us know what is expected. And then we need to decide how to better clean it up. But we
have everything we need in the code. Now I think um again it's it wasn't because we needed the a new tree ordinance in order to comply. We complied at some point. We fell out of compliance. It could have been I think a resident wrote me about spend that we were not paying the membership. I I don't even know if
you know what is and so at the end of the day we did comply at some point. So we had it um maybe the the first so this is a feedback to to to some of the comments I've heard. So the first call I gave after I I received the draft uh was to the attorney because that sort of
what was drafted on the ordinance was sort of in opposition to everything I want I was I was thinking for. Um so I'm like how come you know this is not taking in considerations a lot of the things I discussed and I thought the idea was to merge. We couldn't because of sunshine. So, in essence, we can have
conversations of the conversations that the attorney has with uh the commissioner. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But the issue was was I I there was no way for me privately to collaborate with Commissioner Huntington's desires with regards to the
requirements from from Tree City USA and Commissioner um Hamsler, excuse me, uh desires with regards to her ordinance. There's no way for me to privately. That's a sunshine violation. So for me to prepare an ordinance and then say okay just for example commissioner
hunting and I I prepared this and now give it to commissioner um Amsler and ask commissioner Amsler to revise it for me or or make make comments. I'm basically being an inter intermediary between their com conversations which is a violation of sunshine. So, the only
way to do this and parse this out is really at a public meeting that's been publicly noticed today and like today or or the workshop you're talking about, give me direction as to what you want me to draft or or how you want me to revise the existing ordinance if that's what
the direction of the commission is and I'll create the product that you all direct me to create. But that was Yeah. And so I just wanted to put context to that as to how come this came along. Well, you know, we have two different sort of visions of how this needs to happen. I don't think it's needed. I
think we have everything in the code. Yet, I do believe we need processes. I mean, Tree City USA and I was so pleased to see you can't even move forward with an ordinance as it stands because it requires an SOP, which I have been talking for two years now. So, we are
required to put in in practice certain standards. So, it's not just saying we're going to do things, it's about how we're going to do things so that we don't go through what happened recently. So, um again, I just wanted to give that context as to how this came along. And again, appreciate everybody that came
forward. I do have questions about what Dory mentioned about what happened in uh Griffin with this Australian pine that was cut at, you know, at the stump. Do we know anybody? Yeah. Griffin Boulevard from the county. I mean, they wouldn't
just come in not letting anybody know and do that. Right in the middle of the discussion of Australian Pisa seems a little bit insensitive to do. So, I would just want to know um what happened, Issa. Uh thank you for filling it for the manager, but you're I'm
putting that on you to find out. Um and then I just, you know, I'm not going to go into each one of that. I I want to say thank you to um um Kate for being here. Uh you are one of my next items to come along. Actually I know resiliency
has not been touched as a board for a long long time. Uh I was here when it was one person not meeting quote and he didn't even know how to get in or how to get into the meeting. Um that was months ago and as as I can see we're still
navigating the same issue. I was called by M. I told you guys this uh to talk about resiliency. I didn't have anything to say and and it can be because there's a lot that that was discussed a lot that was put in minutes and I just don't know where it stands and a lot of that has to
do with the transition of management that we've had and so I I urge you to and say thank you for putting your expertise uh and you know connect with with our parks and parkways board and hopefully you can be part of the meeting uh part of the soil treatment has a lot
to do with resiliency as as well as many other projects that we presented like solar um you know that still I don't know where it stands. So that sort of wraps up my feedback. So Mr. Mayor, can I speak some guidance from the commission just
on with regards to ordinances just to get an idea of what what the commission's looking if I I figured you did. Um so when I'm when I'm given instructions to draft an ordinance, revise an ordinance, would is it the
commission's desire? Sorry. Can try and speak into the mic a little bit better, please. If you can close. No, I know. I Is it So, when I'm when I'm instructed by the commission to either draft an a um a new ordinance, revision to a existing ordinance, whatever it might
be, is it the commission's desire for it to first come before you as a discussion item before first read? because we we we did that at one point for for a period of time and then I got some not from this manager from the previous manager.
I got some push back from that. Did not want it as a discussion item. Wanted it as a first read and and so it's whatever your preferences. I mean I'll tell you for me it's easier to have have the discussion first so we're not doing a whole rewrite like we've
done sometimes correct between first and second. But I'll do it however you all direct me to do it. I I think we should have it as always have it as a discussion before because it cost us money to do audiences. So we can have a discussion and then from the discussion might not come up. Yeah, it's beyond
that that point at at this stage for for the budget itself. But it's about the fact that we've hadn't had the opportunity even to revise ourselves. Um you guys are coming to see a draft we hadn't even talked about. This is the first time we meet to say I don't agree with it. So why would you even put a
ordinance for approval if if half of the commission even majority says no. So I think it it's it's just redundant. I think it's it's it's a waste of time to do it that way. I understand some ordinances might have amendments and this might be a paragraph a sentence a
correction and that might come for two different um times you know for approval where discussions is open for us to to talk about. But when it's a first ordinance we've never talked about before, I mean I it just should should always come to to discussion and then you know we all
agree check move in next for approval especially when there's no urgency whatsoever on this matter. So can we come to an agreement because we got a very long agenda now and it's almost 8:00. So can we decide what we want to do here and just move forward? I thought
we okay we both we I think Mary and I said our where we stand. The rest is on you where you guys uh think we should completely fine with discussion items. I I I my memory is that we came to the decision as a body to put this to first
read last meeting. So this is and and that many times this has been said that I put this on the agenda. I didn't put any ordinance on the agenda. Commissioner doesn't do that. The the manager and the village attorney does do that. Uh but I'm completely fine with doing ordinances by discussion first.
That's fine. Okay. So, Mr. Attorney, okay, thank you. You have you have the direction. Thank you. All right. Is there any other reply before we uh move on? No. Um I just will say um I appreciate people um getting in touch with us before the meeting with through via email and being here this evening.
It's um it certainly helps us do our job when we're hearing a lot from the residents. I just want to very quickly make a comment on decorum. Um you know, we just uh obviously we just experienced um an issue with decorum. It's never happened uh during my tenure, but um we
do have to uphold the quorum. So, when we say it's three minutes, uh look, I'm not I'm happy to let residents go a little bit longer. I want everyone to to to be passionate to be involved. Um but sometimes, you know, we do have to enforce the decorum rules. Uh and that's
what they're there for. So, that's that's what that was. Um and um and it's within our rules, Robert's rules, uh to uphold that decorum. So, I just want everyone to know that that's that's what we were doing. That's what we are adhering to. Um, I certainly by no means am trying to stop anyone from providing
public comment. Um, so that's it. That's I just wanted to make sure that we addressed it. Um, all right. So, let's um very quickly let's try to uh I know we moved number nine to the bottom. Was there any commission reports? Yes, I have a commissioner report. Okay. Uh I had we've moved uh nine
section nine to the bottom, not section eight. Good evening, federal commissioners, village staff, and more importantly, members of our community. Thank you all for being here this evening and for your continued commitment to transparency,
ethical government, and public accountability. I sit before you tonight with a deep sense of responsibility with a growing concern. recent developments regarding decisions made by our interimm village manager in coordination with our
current village attorney, Mr. Bradley Wisman, has raised significant ethical and procedural issues that I believe must be addressed openly and urgently. To begin with, I'm deeply troubled by the decision to allow a village manager
to participate in the selection of a legal council task with investigating his own conduct. The action is not only inappropriate, it threatens the integrity of the entire investigation process. No one should have a hand
selecting their own investigator. It contradicts the basic principles of independent oversight and it undermines the public trust in our ability to hold ourselves accountable. Equally concerned is the pattern that appears to be emerging.
This is not the first time Mr. Weissman has been involved in questionable procurement decisions without proper commission oversight. For example, a prior incident, a private investigating firm was selected to examine the action of a former police chief.
Again, for example, in a prior incident, a private investigative firm was selected to examine the actions of a former police chief, again, without commission approval and with troubling connections. The investigative firm in
that case was led by former uh former colleague of Mr. Wiseman from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, where he previously served as police legal adviser. Only after decisions have been made and funds allocated, apparently structured to avoid
commission approval, did Mr. Weissman accused himself, citing conflict of interest. A similar pro process was followed with the current investigation into the interimm manager. Mr. Weissman again in coordination with the manager
selected a law firm without first first informing the commission only later claimed conflict. Independent research has indicated prior to professional connections between the firm of Mr. Weisman's own office. To make matters
worse, I received credible reports from village employees who stated that complaints of hostile work environment are not being properly documented or addressed. If accurate, he's raised serious concerns on whether misconduct is being
conceded rather than corrected. Mr. White Weissman is our legal counsel, but has failed to respond to my repeat of outreach on these matters. When he has responded, he's done so in conjunction with the manager, which former
reinforces my concern that they may not be acting in the best interest of this commission or the community as a whole. Furthermore, I am extremely alarmed by the proposed agenda item that would transfer the commission's authority to the interim manager concerning the issue
of Australian pines, an issue with potential implications involving federal environmental law and keep concerns from our residents. The commission authority must not be undermined particularly when the actions of the interim manager
already generated civically public scrutiny. This accumulation of events is now deeply matter of poor judgment is a breakdown in our ethic and procedural systems. As your commissioner I believe we must act. I am respectfully calling
for the following. a full and transparent disclosure of all circumstances surrounding the hiring of the attorney involved in the interimm manager's investigation. This includes a terms of engagement, the rational for the selection, and the decision-making
process. I recommend immediate suspension of all investigation activities conducted by this attorney until the commission has the opportunity to review and publicly vote on the matter and the appointment of an independent investigator selected
directly by this commission through a sealed bid process managed by the village clerk. I recommend a minimum of five seal bids to ensure fairness and transparency. This is not about signing blame or casting criticism. It is about restoring
the public trust and ensuring that we as elected officials are held to the highest standards of transparency, ethics, and accountability. To my fellow commissioners, this is the defining moment. Let us make it clear that we will not accept the government that
occurs behind closed doors or decisions that invite proper oversight. Let's show our residents and excuse me that their Let us show our residents that their voices, their concerns, and
expectations of integrity will be honored. Lastly, I feel compelled to address a personal yet important matter. As a sitting commissioner, I've experienced conduct by this internal manager, inter manager, Mr. children that I believe raises the level of
hostile work environments. I am aware of at least two such complaints involving children including my own concerns. However, I have been told that because I am an elected official and not a village employee, there's no formal
process available to address or investigate these claims. I have been advised that my only recourse is to raise these concerns publicly through an open forum, an approach that is both inappropriate and insufficient for handling these serious
allegations. If the interimm management treats the commission in this matter, I am inclined to believe that employees who have come forward with their own hostile work environment complaints. This lack of recourse reflects a troubling gap in our internal
accountability system and I urge this body to consider establishing a clear and fair process for addressing hostile conduct directed at commissioners and public officials. I intend to press present this to the commission my two
formal hostile work environment complaints which to date I have not been addressed by this village. I was advised by the attorney that the matters must be brought before the commission during a public meeting for proper consideration which I am doing
now. So I have two complaints that I will present to the commission. Thank you. Sure. So first and foremost let me just start the commission of Samaria continues as doing again today in accurately. He's done it before and he's
doing it again. I'm trying. Um, let me just start off by stating that once again, Commissioner Samaria is inaccurately stating facts. He's done it before publicly and he's doing it again. With regards to the village manager being involved in the selection of the
investigator into the hostile work environment complaints that were filed against the manager, he was not. The village manager, Mr. Childress was not involved in the selection whatsoever of the individual or the firm that was chosen to investigate the allegations
that were brought against him. The those I mean I I don't even know. All right. So under your rules, under your own personnel rules, it specifically states that if a employment claim is brought against the manager, it is the
village attorney's responsibility to investigate that claim. That's what the rules say. They don't say it's the commission's responsibility to investigate the claim. And there's a very good reason why it's not the commission's responsibility to investigate the claim. It's the vi it's the village attorneys which is mine. The reason why it shouldn't be the village
commission's responsibility to investigate the claim because now the claim becomes political and the whole purpose of it is for it not to be political. It's for an independent individual to come in investigate the compl the complaints and render an
opinion. the the firm that was hired was the firm by the name of Bryant Miller Olive. That's a law local law firm here. They have offices throughout the state. The way we got to Bryant Miller Olive was that I had spoken to some
members in my firm and asked if they could recommend an individual who was capable of, excuse me, of doing this type of investigation. Valerie Vicente who was your one of your former city attorneys here and I had spoken. She said she had worked with the firm. She
had worked with an attorney by the name of Denise Heekum and that she was very qualified to do this type of evaluation. I asked around about Miss Heekum and I got nothing but glowing responses from other attorneys and also was made aware of some other work that she had done.
The issue then became to find out what the cost was going to be to the village to conduct this investigation. As you know, under your purchasing code, there are certain thresholds in which the manager has the authority to expend money andor we have
to go to the commission to seek approval of of of the expenditure of that money. In speaking with Miss Heekum, she assured us that she would be able to and barring something unusual happening that she would be able to do this for $10,000 or less. That is within the manager's
purchasing authority. That doesn't mean the manager select in any way had any hand whatsoever in selecting Miss Heekum to do the investigation. It was just under his authority because I have no purchasing authority under your charter or under your code. So under the
purchasing authority of the manager, he gave me the authority to expend that money to retain that firm to do the investigation. Now, this allegation that there's a there's some relationship between Miss Heek or Brian Miller Olive and and and neighbors Giblin
Nickerson, I would ask any of you to look at any of the firms that do governmental work and try to find that there's no relationship or some type of of relationship where there's been cross representation representing each other. It it it it happens all along. There are
not that many firms out there that do government work and do this work. So what happens is if Bryant Miller Olive, for example, has a client where they have an employment issue that comes up that they need an investigation, they're going to reach out to another government firm that does these things to see if
they can step in and do it because it's a conflict for them to do it themselves. That's that's all that happened here. So this allegation that the manager was somehow involved in the selection of of Miss Heekon and her firm, it's just quite frankly the only way to put it, it's a lie. It's not true. It's not
accurate. It's a complete misrepresentation of the facts. And again, this is not the first time this commissioner has done this. Imagine he's accusing us of or accusing me of avoiding procurement in procuring Miss Hikum's firm to do this.
As I've just explained, under your purchasing code with under $10,000, the manager has the authority to expend the money and give permission to his designate, which was me, to spend the money. Again, no, he had no role whatsoever in selecting Miss Heek. He
his only role was to authorize the money to be spent as long as it stayed under $10,000. Yes. As Commissioner Samar asked the last time he brought this nonsense up. Yes. If Miss Hikum would have came to us and said, "Look, the investigation is is going to be much more extensive than I believe it was
going to be, and I can't do it for $10,000." And by the way, I I have to mention when I was looking for firms, I was getting quoted prices anywhere from $500 up to $850 an hour. Miss Heek agreed to do it at a government rate for
$225 an hour, which is very, very low for an attorney to do that type of investigation. I've do these investigations for other jurisdictions. I'm doing one right now for a jurisdiction in Broward County and I'm charging $425 an hour on behalf of the
firm. So, it was a very fair price with regards to avoiding with with regards to the commissioner's allegation that we avoided the procurement. Again, he doesn't know his own procurement rules because, as I said, $10,000 threshold, the manager has the authority with
regards to professional service agreements, which is what this is. Hiring Miss Hickham's firm was a professional service agreement. Your code specifically exempts professional service agreements from needing to go out for for bids. Why? Because when
you're hiring an attorney, when you're hiring a a some type of professional service, a consultant, whatever it might be, it may not be the lowest bidder that's that's the best choice. You you have you have a right to to wave competitive bidding.
Competitive bidding is not it's not even waiver. It's not required under your code to move forward and and and engage in a professional service agreement. The professional service agreement with Miss Hickim is a public record. Anyone can have it. It's filed with the clerk of
with the not the clerk of court, I'm sorry, with with the clerk of the village and anyone that makes a request for it would be more is more than welcome to have it and I'll be more than willing to provide it if anybody wants it. There is no secrets in that in that contract. with regards to me recusing
myself, which this is just going on to the the attacks by Commissioner Samaria is just amazing to me because Commissioner Samaria sitting there knows very well why one I recused myself from those investigations and why I can't tell you why. And hopefully in the next
week I'm going to be able to tell you why. And hopefully I'm and not only am I going to be able to tell you why, but I'm looking forward to sharing it with all of you and explain to you why I had to remove myself. There was no conflict of interest with me which caused me to remove myself but there was something
that was initiated by somebody on this dis caused me to remove myself and that hopefully will be resolved next week and once it's resolved next week I'll be more than happy to share it with each and every one of you because again it's another example of that man sitting
there on the dis and lying no I don't need claps I'm sorry this is my livelihood this is an attack on my person and I'm not going to sit here and take it. And if this is my last if this is my last speech in this in this village, that's fine. But the fact
of the matter is I'm not going to sit here and take this anymore. So, we'll address my recusal when I can. Hopefully, that'll be resolved next week and you'll all know why I recuseed myself and stepped away from those investigations. And quite frankly, I can tell you I did it because at the time,
based on what was going on, which he knows about, it was in the best interest of the village for me to remove myself so that there were no allegations when those findings came out with regards to me having any influence in how those investigations took place. And let me just back up something else about Miss
Heek. If I if Miss Heek was sitting in this room right now, I wouldn't even know she was here. I've never met her face to face. The only time I've ever talked to her is either on the phone or through emails. when I was retaining her services to do the investigation into the hostile work environment allegations. Commissioner says that the
hostile work environment investigations were not being documented or addressed properly. That again is a fallacy. It's not true whatsoever. The investigations were initiated as quickly as we could. there was a process that had to be
followed with regards to retaining the the investigators to do the this hostile work environment complaint. I will tell you that Mr. Steel when he initially filed his complaint or when he sent that email on February 14th, I had a
conversation with him and as a matter of fact, I had a conversation with him and I was accused by the by the village manager of trying to side with with Mr. Steel because I was having a conversation with Mr. Steel after he filed a complaint. it was my obligation to investigate it or initiate an investigation. So I had to speak to him
about it and I was informed by Mr. Steel that he had additional information that he was going to provide. So that made me hold off for a little while until I got the additional information which he never provided. There was an internal I will put disagreement within
the management as to how to proceed which may have delayed the retention of an investigator of Miss Heekum when it came to um doing that hostile work environment complaint. But nobody ignored the complaints. Nobody hid the complaints. Nobody did anything other
than what my obligation was to do was to make sure that these complaints got investigated and got investigated by a neutral and detached individual who did not know any of the individuals involved in this situation was not a witness to anything and could independently look at this investigation and make a
determination whether there was sufficient cause based on the allegations that were brought by Mr. Steel. Commissioner Samaria is claiming that I have I don't I haven't I haven't responded to his outreach. I don't know what outreach he's talking about. I can
tell you for certain that based on recent developments that have happened that I'm not going to have any private conversations with Mr. Samaria whatsoever unless they're memorialized somehow by a recording or they're witnessed or they're in public. That I
can tell you for certain will never happen again. However, I have no idea what he's talking about but out by me not reaching out to him because up until recent history, if he reached out to me and had a question, I responded to it. He used to tell me that he was
sending me emails and that I wouldn't that I'd never get and then he would accuse me or not accuse me, I'm sorry, he would accuse the manager of somehow circumventing his emails so his emails wouldn't get to me. I don't know how the manager was doing that. I don't know how the manager would even know he was sending me emails. But the fact of the
matter is I was never receiving the emails. So it's a little hard for me to respond to something that I've never received before. I'm going to I'm going to do this in the order in which the commissioner brought these things up. Now let's talk and then I'll go to the the investigation that's into Mr. that's
that was into Mr. Steel that was brought by Mr. Navaro providing with regards to providing the authority of the manager to to cut down trees. Right now the manager has the authority to cut down trees. The manager runs this village.
That's his job. He's the chief executive officer of this village. If a tree has to be cut down, it's his decision whether to cut down that tree. Whether you all like it or not, whether you want to change it, that's a different story. But right now, the way that works, it's the manager's ability. That's within his
authority. that's within his job descript description, excuse me, to decide whether or not a tree in the village has to be cut down. Now, when the commission becomes involved in it, and I'm talking about right now, I'm not talking about moving forward. Right now, when the commission would become involved in that is if it's a
procurement issue. So, obviously in the issue, and I'm not saying right or wrong, but the issue with all the pines that were cut down, the cost of that exceeded the manager's authority. So the manager had to come to the commission and get approval from you all to expend
that money to hire that expert or that tree I'm sorry the tree service and do the work. Whether the work should have been done or not that's not what I'm discussing right now. I'm just discussing process and I'm discussing the allegations that were brought by this commissioner. So there was no there
was no circumventing procurement. There was no giving the manager authority that he didn't have. I understand that the ordinance that we're that it's being proposed kind of reaffirms that the manager has that authority. That's something you're all not comfortable about. That's fine. We can change that.
That's not a problem. But right now, as you sit here today, that's within the manager's authority to run this village. With regards to the commission, again, selecting investigators to do employment complaints, that's outside the scope of your authority. I'm sorry, but that is just outside the scope of
your authority for the reasons why I've stated earlier. That authority is within according to your personnel rules is within the manager's authority if he's not the subject of the complaint or within the city attorney's authority if the manager is the subject of the
complaint with regards to the hiring of with regards to the hiring of Rick Magleion and Magnetic Investigations to conduct the investigation that was initiated by by um former employee Roberto Navaro. Yes, Mr. Magleone and I
used to work together in the city of Fort Lauderdale. He was the police chief. I was his legal adviser. I was an assistant city attorney assigned to the police department as his legal adviser. I picked Mr. Magleion for several reasons. One, he had over 10 years experience involved in internal affairs
investigations. He was an internal affairs investigator for years. Did probably close to a 100 internal affairs investigations. He was also the commander of internal affairs on two different periods of time for the city of Fort Lauderdale where he commanded
about 10 sergeants who conducted um internal affairs investigations for a police department that had 535 sworn officers and and approximately 250 civilian officers. So he had immense experience. He's very well-versed in in
in in chapter 112 dealing with police officers bill of rights. He's a very thorough investigator. sometimes I would say too thorough and he but he's a very thorough he's very good writer and he also has no idea who any of the players
were is not involved in Miami Dade law enforcement not in involved in Miami Dade politics and was completely independent and was looking at this at a with a clean slate. I gave him no direction whatsoever on how to do his investigation other than to provide him
the 300 some odd pages that Robo Roberto Navaro provided us as as as part of his complaint and then provide him whatever documentation he requested from the village as part of his investigation and information on how to contact president and former employees so that he could
conduct interviews. Other than that, I did not direct his investigation in any way, shape or form. Again, with regards to procurement issues, he agreed to do it atund I'm trying to remember what his rate was. I think he said 100 I think it
was 175 or $200 an hour. 175. Thank you. He agreed to do it at 175 an hour, which I would suggest is a very reasonable rate. And I can tell you that he is probably over the over $10,000, but is
not going to charge. He agreed not no matter how many hours he worked, he would not exceed a total amount of $10,000. Again, within the manager's authority to purchase to to expend, excuse me, money. So, there was no there was no
circumvention of any ordinances of any rules or regulations. And this this concept that I have to go out and hire somebody that has no connection to me whatsoever and I don't know whatsoever makes no sense. If you all you all know
what the yellow pages is. Well, for those of you that don't know what the yellow pages is, it was a big phone book with a bunch of numbers of businesses in it. Okay, that's what the yellow pages was. It's the new Google. So the ex So if I'm not going to find somebody that I know is talented and capable of doing
the investigations that need to be done and do them in the best interest of the village and do them at a rate that the village can afford and I don't break your coffers. If I'm not expected to do that, then I might as well just open the yellow pages or go into Google and say
employment investigation. Okay, you have the job. it's yours and whatever product you get, whether it's good, bad, or otherwise, whatever their price is, you accept it and that's it. And then there's no allegation whatsoever that I know the investigator or I had contact with the investigator or my firm knows
the investigator or I've worked with a prior with the prior employee. These allegations are ridiculous. I have no dog whatsoever in this fight between the hostile work environment that was lodged by by Mr. Steel against Al Childress. And I can tell you, I don't know whether
Mr. Steel will admit it or not, but I spent hours sitting down with Mark Steele and trying to help him and get through things in this village and trying to help him how to reconcile his issues that he had with with Mr. Childress, how to survive as a police
chief in this village. And I tried all those things. And this is what I get in return for. And I get it. that has nothing to do with any of this, but I just had to get that off my chest. I just have one more thing to say and then I'll be done. I'm
sorry. And I'm just I I got to be honest with you. I'm just sick and tired of listening to these allegations that are being brought by Commissioner Samaria, which are totally baseless. They're not true. And and and quite frankly, if you all
want me to step down, I'll be more than happy to step down right now. because I'm I'm I'm going to be 65 years old in November and quite frankly I don't need this nonsense. That's it. I listen I um I I can appreciate your your your detailed and
your your passionate passionated response uh to what's been said here. Please. the hostile work environment complaint that or at least the one that I I'm assuming he's alleging that I've ignored which is the one that I think you all got an email
about is from former Captain Lozano. I want to let you know yes he sent a complaint back on February 20th, 2025. He labeled it a complaint. He labeled it hostile work environment manager children. He addressed it to Mark Steele. And I can tell you that I've
read this complaint. Miss Heek has read this complaint. It is not a hostile work environment complaint. It doesn't allege a hostile work environment. All he alleges in this document is that he was a witness to an interaction between Mark Steele and Al Childress at the time when
Al Childress was going to suspend Mark Steel with pay pending the investigation outcome of the investigation that was being brought because of um the the Navaro complaints and that when we reviewed it there was no
host there's nothing to investigate in here. All he says is what he saw and that it made him uncomfortable. that is not a hostile work environment complaint. You know that maybe they need to rename a hostile work environment and what that allegation is because just because somebody says somebody's mean to you, somebody's not nice to me, my
manager doesn't like me, my boss is mean to me, he yells at me, that is not a hostile work environment complaint. The complaint has to be pervasive. It has to happen frequent and it has to and I'm I'm paraphrasing for time's sake. And not only that, it has to be based on
some immutable trait by race, religion, sexual preference, whatever it might be, but that has to be the basis. And there is nothing in Mr. Lozano's memo that he wrote to Chief Steel that alleges any of those things. And there was nothing to
investigate. So this is what we hid, by the way, a complaint that's not a complaint that had nothing to do with anything. And I also want you last thing because it's just all coming back to me is when Mr. Steel resigned, he was
already under investigation. And the reason why I know that is because this whole incident that Lozano is talking about is when Al Childress brought Mr. steel into his office and handed him a document which stated that you're under
an administrative investigation and that you're suspended with pay and that you're to go home pending the outcome of the investigation and once the investigation is done we will notify you whether or not any disciplinary action is going to be taken. So Mark Steele
when he resigned he resigned after he was informed that he was placed under investigation and suspension. That's all I'm gonna say. I have a something to ask uh Jonathan after you're finished. I I I think I think
that's Yeah. So, I just had a quick uh question for Brad. Um so, I just read over the the hostile work uh claims from Commissioner Samaria, and there's obviously some very uh serious allegations in in this. So, there is. I
guess so. My so my first question is um I've never heard of a boss filing a work a hostile work envir environment against an employee. That's the first part. So is that so what what recourse is here that can be done uh with this uh for
from from a commissioner standpoint uh oh so you're correct it's very rare for a hostile work environment or complaint to be brought against a b by by a boss to a subordinate. It can be done. There are circumstances where it can be done.
The the problem with and and I had this discussion with the commissioner. The problem with his hostile work environment complaint is he is not an employee of you all are not employees of the village. And I know the commissioner said, "Well, I get us I get money and I get 1099, so I must be an employee." No.
What you get according to your code is you get a stipen for costs. If the village is 1099ing you, I I'd have to defer to Paul as to why that's a 1099. But okay, but but it's not it's not salary. It's it's a stipen for cost for
being a commission. So, well, I I can't address it. You're not this is an official. You're not the bill. So the only thing that can be done, and this is what I explained to the commissioner, is if the manager is not treating him the way he feels it's
appropriate, he should bring it up to the commission and and and address the commission with his concerns and ask the commission to impose some type of sanction on the manager for his behavior if the commission believes that's that's fit. This is bringing me that could be
anything from you could suspend them, you could reprimand them, you could terminate them. This is bringing me flashbacks of Mac and Chris. I'm getting Chris and Mac flashbacks right now. Go ahead. Sorry. So, this is Well, all right. I I
I think that the the reasonable course of action at this point is we we have pending investigations that are concluding that we have pending investigations that are concluding sometime soon. Uh, and I think that
there's been enough back and forth between the things that have been said and the things that have been have responses to those things that based on this coming to us in a report. This is not coming to us in a discussion item. It's not coming to us in a recommendation for action. This is a commissioner report. So, I don't think
that there is anything for this board to do at this point. I I just couldn't sit here and let him say the I I understand. I understand. I just I want us I want us to have a very clear path forward here. This was brought to us in a commissioner report. We've had extensive discussion over it. Even though this is not the time or the place for it, it was brought
up. It's been responded to and I don't think there's any further action for the for the the commission to take at this time. If there's something further based on what we've heard, it needs to come to us in a formal discussion item. But I've heard a lot about it already and I've heard and I know that we have the conclusion of some of these
investigations that are the subject of the items that we discussed here. And I don't think that we can take I don't even think we can take any further action until we get that information because that's going to provide clarity. I think so. That's how I feel about it. I think that this has kind of been I I
understand why it's been brought up, but I don't know that this has been brought up in the right place. And I don't and I based on what we've heard in response, I don't think there's any further action to take on this item at this time. And I would ask the commission if there's any differing opinions. Understanding that Commissioner Samary has brought this. I
have a feeling his opinion will differ from mine, but I would ask the commission if there is anything that any action that you all would like to take outside of what I I've recommended. I don't know what action we can take. I I I do have a proposal. Um I mean, what we
say either you are a subordinate or you know you're the boss or it doesn't matter. I mean, we talked about positions here, who reports to who to say what. Um what we say matters. The words carry value. how we behave as
commissioners have the same sort of impact as how the manager behaves as a manager. We all have a role to play and we all have information in front of us to do due diligence and get and read things and prepare and come with all of
that in mind. Um I don't take lightly the accusations that were done but what I would say is I will bring it as a discussion items after all the stuff sort of comes out in terms of what the pending investigations say because I want to understand what where this is
coming from and that's taken so much of our time already for today. Um Mr. Samaria if this is uh something in relates to our attorney that it's in any way you know um miscommunicated or you
know not in in any way puts uh the pressure to our legal film which has been with us for a long time. Um we we need to talk about that. Mike isn't on. Talk about my second complaint that I filed in reference to
the Easter hunt which uh well then I I think that's important. And I also called the attorney right afterwards and to this day I it's what two weeks he still hasn't responded. I told this all right. I I think look look this is this
is enough back and forth on this right now. Yes. We've spent we've spent a lot of time on it. We've we've heard from the commissioner. We've heard from the attorney responding to each and every allegation that has been made here tonight. And I think pending the conclusion of the investigations, I think this needs if if the commissioner
believes that there's something that has not been discussed, I think that needs to come on a discussion item. I got I got something else I want to say. Guys, listen. Um I think we've talked more than enough on this topic. We have a very serious issue in front of us, which is the ma the manager selection. We are certainly not going to get to it at this
point. And I will tell you that several of those we have great some great candidates on there and some of them are going to fall away because we're going to lose them. They're going to get jobs and if we're serious and we want to hire a manager, we need to move on this and we are not going to get to it tonight. Yes, to me this is completely uh
inappropriate uh because the the priority is the village not any individual up here. So we need to move on and we need to get to the manager selection process. I agree. I completely agree. I don't think there's any action we can take at this point. I will just say as a a fair warning to the my fellow
commissioners that this is a pattern commissioner Samaria he uh attacked my livelihood now he's attacking the village attorney's livelihood and it seems like a pattern if you don't agree with what he says you could be next and it's disturbing and I just want you uh all to be aware that this is becoming a
pattern with him understanding and acknowledging that we've heard from both parties we've heard allegations we've heard a response from our attorney I I think we need to close the door on this for the time Uh, and I think we need to move on um without without turning without turning away from what we've heard. You know,
not we can acknowledge that we've heard from both parties and that we're not just overlooking this, but we do need to move on. We need to move on. I don't know if there's any other commissioner reports, but I had my I'm I'm passing because we we need to just
keep going. I agree. Let's go on to our consent agenda then. Do I have a a first and a second to approve the consent agenda as it's been amended? Motion to approve consent agenda in a second. Second. That is all in favor of the consent
agenda as it been amended. I I All right. 10 C, 10 D, 10 F, 10G, and 10H. We're all pulled. So, let's just start with our 10 C right away because we have no longer we don't have any ordinances any further. So, let's start with our 10
C, which is resolution 2025-27. Brad, uh, could you please read it for us when Yeah, I'm sorry. 10 A 10B 10E 10 E. They don't have us having removed 10E. Correct. No, that's
all right. No, it's okay. 10 C 2000 resolution 2025-27. Yes. A resolution of the village commission of the village of Biscane Park, Florida, approving an agreement between the village of Biscane Park and in alignment consulting LLC for as needed government coordination,
municipal support and comprehensive project services, authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement and to do all things necessary in furtherance of this resolution and providing for an effective date. Thank you, Brad. Do I have a motion and a second to move the resolution to discussion? Motion to move
to discussion with limiting discussion to three minutes per commissioner. How many? I'm sorry. Three minutes per commissioner. We have a second on that motion. All right. All in favor? I Okay. Um, Commissioner Amsler, I know you you
wanted to move this from consent, so maybe you want to just let us know. Uh, yes. So, so for me, so we have two items we're going to go today which are consulting firms to provide uh support for the manager. Uh, one of them comes in the shape of uh, $25,000. The other
one comes in the shape of $15,000. Um, I have questions related to the contract specific. Um, one of the questions was in terms of who the village is when we say the village and I I spoke with uh Brad a little bit
earlier um as to how do we hinder a little bit on on that meaning we have to say I don't know if definitions because there's two different contracts. I think that was a mistake. So in the definitions it says village manager and it identifies the village manager as the chief administrative officer of the
village. Where it says village it should say village manager. just reading through it. Okay, hold on. Uh yeah. All right. So, and the
definitions. Yeah. Villain manager, the chief administrative officer because if you read along the entire document, uh the powers are about the village and I want to make sure that it states the village is the village manager. So the one sign in on this and behind in terms
of accountability as well is on uh the village manager. Make that correction. Thank you. Um on the consultant side uh do we have a specific name as to who's performing this? It could be a a you
know number of individuals who are going to be put in this contract. They all are going to be subject to public record. Um, so I'm wondering if that has is is there is a way to to get access to that or is not needed because we put as an LLC and then anybody can come and you're
asking if there's a specific consultant. Yes. Um, I'm not this was the manager's item. I'm not really familiar with the Oh, we're in alignment consulting, right? Oh, so they might be they're on Zoom. They can address whether there's a it may be a oneperson firm. I'm not
sure. So that's why I wanted to understand because in the definitions it says the consultant. So who's who's liable for public record for example the consultant if you look at the at the top paragraph the opening paragraph the consultant is basically the LLC the
company. So anybody it's the company that's responsible and any representatives of the company that doing work for the village. Okay. So uh who who would provide access to the email? says here that we would provide access to email, right? Well, yes, that
the the consultant needs an email a village email access. So, so would we have I'm trying to understand whether we're going to have we can't have an LLC as an as a person, right? Um so, who's coming in and out of the village? Who
has access to on behalf of the image will of the village will be an email, you know, is it one person, is it three people? Um maybe we can ask the consultant if they're if they're on I'm not familiar with the company. Yeah, I'm here. So are you are there more than
one employee in your company or are you So if you look at the qualification statement that was provided with the agenda item, you would see David Brown and Christina Brown. What's that? I'm sorry. I didn't hear last. David and Christina Brown. Okay. So there's two
people. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So you both will be getting email and access to the village to on behalf of the manager. Yeah. And it would just be a village email. The reason we do that like with every other city that we work with, you guys own the email. You have access to
your email. Uh we just use it when we need to do the work that you have asked us to do. So if you ask us to, you know, work are you get are you getting a village email address so that you can is that what that you're talking about? All public record stays with you guys.
Right. So it would be one one. So the email could be um it could be in align consulting at this park.gov. The way we do it like in Ball Harbor or Indian Creek Village it's progrant or something like that like an alias of some sort
that you guys name at this parkfl.gov. We have you know you give us access to that and then we use that only that to communicate with you all and through you all on behalf of you that would resolve the public record. Yes. That's why we do it. Makes sense. Yeah.
We don't use our personal email for anything um outside of our invoices and contracts like between the business and the village. But outside of that any work for you guys is conducted 100% through your email. So that the minute that you don't want to work with us, you
still retain access to all your records. Okay. Um I had another question on 2.4 consultant responsibilities. The consultant shall provide status updates on assigned tasks as requested and proactively notify the village of any issues delayed. Um I would ask that that
is uh there is an on ongoing project status uh with the commission as well. We currently have different departments provide status to us on a monthly basis. So on any uh sort of responsibilities that the manager decides to hide you uh hire you guys, I would appreciate if uh
that be considered as part of of a report included uh to the commission. Are you asking that the consultant make the reports directly either the consultant or the manager himself? But uh you know through the services
provided by by by the firm. So the but I mean it would be the manager's responsibility generally commission advised of any projects. Okay. So it would be with them not here. So yeah so if the consultant is working on a project got it be the manager during the manager reports and
through letters to the commission and whatnot explain to the commission the progress of whatever that project is based on the information that they get from the consultant. Okay. All right. That's clear. The consultant and and then I'll go into 2.47.
47. I believe the consultant shall not incur financial obligations or enter into bidding agreements on behalf of the village unless expressively uh expressly authorized in writing by the village manager or approved by the village commission. I'm not comfortable
with or approved by the village commission. I think if anything it's the village manager but if we want to include the commission should be end. Reason why it's or is depending on what the financial obligation is. Yeah. the amount of mayire it may require commission approval. So the cost is over
managers purchasing one or the other. I could give you I could give you an example. Um I don't think I would be doing anything like that for Biscane Park, but in some other cities they they sometimes wanted me to sign up for like a membership or something like for um project tracking
or something like that or grant tracking different things that I provide to different cities and then if I pay the membership of $75 a month or whatever it is, whatever the subscription is, they'll authorize it and then I just bill it through the invoice. But I don't see that happening for Biscane Park. I I don't think you need anything like that
from what I've been advised. is just help here and there as needed with procurement um you know preparing RFPs or ITBs and working in coordination with the attorney for all the legal reviews of that and making sure that the scope is being interjected into those um bid
documents correctly so that you guys have no hiccups when it comes to procurement. Okay. Okay. And then when it comes to to the different types of um of a project, so on the uh hourly rate, if we go, it's 4.1 amount of
payment. Yep. Yeah. So it's $75 an hour, $100 an hour. There is a difference to be considered whether you're uh workshops, training, and basically uh engaging with other agencies. And however, the total
would not exceed to $25,000. What I am not understanding it is at what point does the company come forward with a scope of work and a number of hours to specify by project. So say we have a bidding um uh going on right now to I don't know rent trucks and and you know
that is a bidding process that your guys are going to be in charge of. Um that project might take $5,000 because the hours that require. So, I'm I'm trying to understand if I'm going to receive a $25,000 uh you know, and June say it wasn't
enough because we had to go through more procurement services. Um how do you uh are able or not able to estimate hours for for work? We track hourly and um from experience, I can tell you that we would never bill that much for any type of service like that. So, on average, if
we're doing like an RFP or an ITB and we're coordinating that process, it's, you know, maybe two $3,000 here or there depending on what it is. Um, I'm sorry, what's that? Maybe $3,000. What? Depending on what it is. If we're running the whole cycle all the way through. So, we do not estimate overall
by task how much it's going to be because we really can't assess that early in advance, but we go based off what we know we've done with other cities depending on what it is. Mr. Mayor, if I will. We're at 40 4 minutes 45 seconds. Okay. Um, sorry. I'm going to keep asking the
questions I have to ask. Um, this should require probably prior approval in my end. Um, I think or the way I see it um by by the village manager. So, I feel more comfortable with having some sort of an estimation by project. Um, so that
that you know we would know how many We cannot do that and I will not offer that. I'm sorry. Is that something how you would typically work with uh supporting other municipalities? Correct. I don't have I don't put that into any of our contracts because we can't operate at that. Got it. All
right. That answers my main question. I appreciate you. I have more more comments on the con on the content of the contract, but I will leave it to them. Okay. Rest of the commission. Any other questions um for the contractor? She's with
us. None. Okay. Um All right. So, uh for resolution uh 2025-27, um is do we have a motion to We already have a motion to approve. I'm sorry. Yeah. Correct. So, um all in favor of the approval of the resolution. I I I
No. Okay. Uh Miss Brown, thanks so much for being with us tonight. We appreciate your uh your attendance and um your ability to answer some questions for us. Thank you very much. No worries. Thank you guys. Have a nice night. You as well. Thank you. All right. So, our next resolution is going to be what was
formerly 10D. Uh and that's resolution 2025-28. Um Mr. Attorney, would you please uh read this one under the record for us? Yes. A resolution of the village commission of the village of Biscane Park, Florida, approving an agreement between the village of Biscane Park and Yolanda Agular Consulting Inc. for
consulting and administrative services relating to America America should be the relating to American rescue plan acts funds authorizing the city manager to execute set agreement and do all things necessary in furtherance of this
agreement and providing for an effective date. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion and a second to move this into discussion? Motion to move into discussion, limiting discussion to three minutes per commissioner. I second it. Okay. Hopefully we we abide by that.
Okay. Uh and um all in favor of uh the motion as it's been u proposed by uh Commissioner Huntington. I I Okay. Um I believe we have the consultant here with us. Hi there. Uh would you mind just
just in case there's any questions please? Didn't you guys just vote? Uh that was just uh on the motion to move into discussion with the conditions that were that were I'm sorry I missed Huntington. No problem. Thank you. I appreciate
it. Not this time. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. After everything you've heard, I'm sure it's uh that was a lot to take. I will make one comment because I'm usually very forthright. I know that you are in the
process of your commencement process with selecting a village manager. I served 29 out of 40 years in the city of West Miami as a city manager. I'm probably the longest serving city manager in the history, I think, in the state of Florida.
It's a really rewarding position, but it is a very difficult position because you have to answer to different people and you have to answer to the public primarily like some of you have said, we are the bos the bosses of
this commission is is the community. But I have to tell you that the profession and that's one of the reasons why I decided that after 40 years it was my time to move on. Not because I couldn't continue to do it, but I believe that the profession is under siege. I really
believe so because I think there is somehow someway there's a lack of understanding as to where certain rights begin and where certain rights end. And I for one I have to tell you that I
consider myself very lucky. But sometimes in life when you say no and you step on somebody's toes, it's mistaken as a personal conflict. And it shouldn't be because sometimes the job of a manager is to
protect the commission from themselves. And it's the hardest thing to do. I did it day in and day out. Sometimes I was on in in a popular mode, if you would, and some other times I had commissioners who were upset at me and
then they understood over time the reasons why we said no. I think we cannot accommodate your request at this time. And that that's hard because these are my neighbors. I live in the city of West Miami. These are my very neighbors
that I have to say no to. So I I encourage you as a former manager and as a person who's deeply rooted into invested into my community, I encourage you to work with your manager in good faith to so you can
be able to have positive outcomes and and that's just my advice to you. It it has a way of affecting people in a more positive fashion. Well, I agree. That's all on that. Well, we appreciate your insight particularly with your experience allowing me to speak. Great.
So, um, understanding, uh, that we are trying to to make some progress. Is there any is there any introduction or anything that you'd like to give us any context with respect to the item that we're discussing right now? Basically, I I came to I I I was contacted by Manager Childris whom I have known for over 20
years in the in the management industry in the city manager industry. And I highly respect uh Mr. children. He advised me he had accepted an interim position here at the village. Um and so all of a sudden he came to find out that
the America the ARPA funds as we know it were um possibly in jeopardy. So he brought me in to see if I can um find out where we were at, where the village was at. And I say we because I I have an
investment in this and I've made it my personal business to uh and professional business to help uh the village with moving forward to securing the ARPA uh money to be tied to the projects that this either the village has accomplished
and some others that are in the pipeline. So I was asked if I could uh look deeper into the status of the ARPA money and I did. I've spent about 35 to 40 hours since I became engaged into
accessing a very difficult portal um attending webinars here on site and some in my home office uh speaking to the Florida League of Cities, speaking to your city attorney, speaking to your financial manager and the city manager
on a daily basis. Um it's too early to tell. I want to say that I am very cautiously optimistic that the village is now moving in the right path to making sure that the dollars that have been spent into in these improvements
are consistent with the use of the ARPA money. I think tonight what you have before you is the approval of my consulting fees. I commit to you that I will continue to work very diligently through your manager's office to make
sure that we make a positive impact and that you know we can move forward in um you know reshifting the uncertainty into a position of certainty with the use of ARPA money. So just to be clear, this is money that we received, right? Uh and
that we didn't provide the proper documentation over the years, right? Is that is that correct? We're we're still in factinding. The manager, I'm sorry, the consultant, the manager and and the finance manager,
Paul, we're all still kind of looking at this and and trying to work through this and and kind of figure out where the village is. So, I I would just kind of advise at this point if if we not start opining or really discussing what the status of the funds is because that that's really what you're retaining the
um Miss Agular for so she can assist the village in determining really what the status of the funds are, what the village is whether the village is in compliance or has been in compliance with the filing requirements and um and then assist if there's if there's a need
for an appeal process to assist with that that appeal process. and like I can can't think of the word but fact finding we got to do a lot of factf finding yes a joint effort between between myself miss Agular Mr. Mr.
Winkle, John and and the manager so that we can kind of give you some more better solid information instead of kind of guessing or speculating as to where you are. And I just would be concerned about putting something on the record that maybe somehow affect that outcome at
this point. And and the only thing I did want to put into the record is the village was uh required to fulfill uh logging into the department of treasury portal and reporting on April 30th as to the activities of the projects. And we
met that dead deadline. So um so far so good. I think we we should be in a position as soon as the manager gets back from vacation to have a sit down with him and see how we move forward and what issues we need to raise if any with
the Department of Treasury. But we're working hard. Okay. Well, thanks very much for the context and the introduction. Um, go ahead and ask the commission if they have any questions for you or any questions about the agreement of the resolution. Thank you, sir. I don't have any questions. Can I thank you? So, um, so thank you
for your help. Uh, I I got introduced uh through through the phone the other day. So, I appreciate you going behind this. My my concern with the agreement is that is after the fact that is been initiated. I'm not a big fan of having um contracted vendors in any capacity to
come forward the commission for approval or anything that has prior already commenced. Um that was already that happened with the minutes as well. You know, we put together a contracted vendor because we needed it and then we need your help. Um but I've never been
of pro approving things. um more so when I hear you say that we've already submitted uh some information on behalf of of the village, you know, um uh I would ask if uh legal has been involved
and um my requirement would be that the contract states that legal needs to be involved whenever anything sort of in any capacity is presented. I don't know if you've been in this conversations. Yeah, s you and I talked earlier today. Okay. We had a conversation about that. I I've
been involved in some of the discussions. There was uh there was a meeting with uh is it the National League of Cities? It was the Florida League of Cities. It's a Department of Research that the Treasury has partnered up with to help municipalities see their
projects through. Obviously, I was not we had the discussion about this. I was not privy to that meeting, but Miss Agu and I had spoken and and I'll be involved in those meetings moving forward. So that you know we're all we're all on the same page. We all know what the status is. If you call one of
us to ask us a question, we'll all be able to answer that question. There won't be any issues. We had talked about that. We have. Brad, just a just quickly. I know you stopped me from asking. So yeah, you did. But wait a minute, but it specifically outlines
every detail in the backup in the memorandum as far as how much money we received, uh what records were not provided, blah blah blah. So, so it's it's in the public record and and yet you didn't want me to ask the question. So, I'm a little confused as to why I
couldn't ask the same question that's in the backup. Well, I guess you could. I I look, I can't stop you all. I can No, no. I I listen, I'm not I'm not I'm just saying if it's in the backup, right? It's clearly stated in the backup what we've received, what we didn't do.
Yeah. I That wasn't my choice. Um I just don't want my concern is that we start making we we start expounding on that and and I just you know everything this is a public record and I don't want I just my concern is I don't want
something if we end up having to go to an appeal or have any asks of of the Treasury Department that nothing that's said here gets misconstrued somehow or misapplied and that somehow Got it. So, if anybody wants to know what questions
I had, just go to the backup and just read the backup. It's there. Thank you. It it was a basically just for the record I I uh wrote a um progress report memo for the me for attend to the attention of the
interim city manager uh advising him when I accepted the role what steps I had taken to immediately dig into the issues um involving the 1 million $535,000 that the city the village
received from ARPA funds um obviously what has been spent and I know Paul is doing um a lot of research himself to come up with the financial figures but we're not there yet we're not we are very hopeful that this will resolve
itself but I don't want to stand here today and tell you this is done this is a done deal it's resolved uh the village is you is now out of the woods you've had some lack of continuity in your administration in the last year. So,
we're just trying to piece what happened since the 2021 dispersement of the ARPA money to the village where we're at now and complying with requirements uh reporting requirements to the department of treasury so that any
discrepancy can be looked upon with a set of uh call them good faith set of eyes because we are uh complying with their processes. Okay, you're very welcome.
Um, so my other one was in relates to um the policies. I just want again because this work has begun prior to um the approval of the commission tonight. I was wondering if uh due diligence was done in terms of providing
all the certificates for insurance prior to star work and uh if not a commitment that it could be done ASAP. I believe I may have sent Mr. Childris my uh professional liability certificates. Uh I am insured. I pay for a yearly policy
and I am insured for half a million dollars. I I believe my policy for a million dollars expires now. I'm trying to get coverage for the same amount, but the carrier is offering a half a million dollar policy. I am licensed. I have a
local business license uh with Miami Day County that I renew every year uh ever since I opened up my consulting firm and I also have an a home occupational license from the city of West Miami where I reside. I appreciate the contract says before any work under this
agreement is performed at any time upon request consultation furnished to the village certificates of insurance evidence and the minimum required coverage and shall properly endors blah blah blah. So I I wanted to make sure that that gets addressed again this started before the approval of this commission which I don't feel
comfortable with but I appreciate you. I am happy to submit my certificate of insurance and licenses also to your city attorney and to your financial manager as it should. Thank you so much and to all of you um if through through the office of the manager or the attorney. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
consideration. Thank you. Uh if there's no further questions um on the agreement uh or for the consultant um go and ask for a vote on resolution 2025-28. Uh all in favor of the resolution
I I I I Okay. All right. So our next uh well the next three all relate to the uh to the minutes. So let's just start with 10F as that's the first one up. Yeah. Um 10F.
Yep. So 10F and 10G I chose um uh both of them I have comments in regards to what it says but I think because of due time I'm happy to sit with um Pamela later on and just make some notes. There's missing information. I mean, we
talked we had a meeting. There was this was an item. We talked about the minimum required information in it. I don't see it. So, Pamela, I'm happy to put myself um you know, in a phone call to to talk about those two in relates to 10H, if we can move along. Oh, very quickly for 10
F and 10G, are you recommending that we table it for the time being? Yes, please. To the next agenda. Well, let's just let's let's just address those two now. Is there uh is there any uh do we have agreement from the commission to table F and 10F and what was previously 10F and 10G um so that the commissioner
can provide some notes uh until the next meeting. I have no problem just table that's fine. Okay. All right. So we have consensus on that. Okay. For 10 F and 10 G to move. All right. So 10H would be the next one. And then 10H I don't know if you all receive an email from Shante.
Used to be our former clerk prior when um Arya Diaz was here. She's claiming a lot of the minutes were already provided and already done and recorded. So I I don't know which ones are which. I I before you answer Pamela um I just want
to take the list in here and understand if anything and then we can look into uh what needs to be pushed forward for for approval. Okay. What Shante did not understand was there were minutes
that were workshops that were not done because we generally don't do minutes for workshops. Don't take any action. The um vendor who Mr. Childress hired did minutes for those workshops that
included dates that um Shante was here as the clerk. So that's what she saw as minutes that were done during her time that she didn't think she, you know, I don't know how to explain it to
you other than um the vendor did minutes for 23 2023 workshops um that were during the time that Miss Bingham was the clerk. So I think what what I would want to to have is a confirmation as to which
minutes were up to what date you know there was switch. I wouldn't know that um commissioner unless I sat down and had a meeting with the vendor and Miss Bingham and if you saw her email does not communicate with me. Okay. No, I
didn't know. So So guys, I'm going to approve the minutes as they are. I'm not putting I just wanted for the record to be noted that um that was already paid at some point to a vendor I mean all you know ex vendor that reach out to us saying that some of the stuff has already been done twice to what extents
I'm still not clear as to you know which months um are happening uh twice or or not. So I'll approve them because they're here and we need to move forward and we need to make this a record. It's been a year. Um, but I I'm not happy to have a vendor email us saying, "You've
already paid for this. I've done it. It shouldn't be here." Um, and then you know what happened to what we'd approve at that point. Uh, do you have two records now on a minute? I don't know. So, I'm I'm hoping there is and I and I requested this to the manager. We have to have a list sort of spending and
identify what needed to be done. Um, but it was a bit all over the place. Um, again, I want to move forward with this. I will pull those remaining of you know the latest one because I have comments on that I mean that and uh and the rest I'm okay okay
yes motion to approve motion to approve our 10H the minutes that are listed under what was previously 10H are there any other question or comments on 10H before we move forward second we have a second okay all in favor of approval of 10H I I
Okay, so our remaining resolution Uh 12A, we have no longer have any ordinances. 12A, which is 2025-30. I know Paul is here with us to address any questions that we may have with respect to this resolution. Um but uh Mr. Attorney, would you please read our
resolution 2025-30, please? Mr. Mayor, a resolution of the village commission of the village Biscane Park, Florida, relating to the collection and disposal of solid waste within the village for fiscal year 2025 2026, establishing the estimated
assessment rate for solid waste service against assessed property located within the village of Biscane Park for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025 through September 30th, 2026. directing the preparation of an assessment role, providing for public hearing and notice
thereof, and providing for severability, and providing for an effective date. Thank you, Brad. And you have to set dates as well. I'm sorry. You have to set dates as well. Okay. Um All right, Brad. Thank you. Uh do I have a motion and a second to uh to move the
discussion to I'm sorry, move the resolution to discussion? Motion move to discussion limiting comment to three minutes per commissioner. Okay. uh with the uh with the conditions um set there by um Commissioner Huntington. Do I have a second? Second. And do we have all in
favor of the I All in favor? I I Okay. Um Paul, uh before we before we have before we get started, excuse me, before we get started with any discussions or questions or anything, is is there any uh kind of
introduction or any kind of I'll be very brief. Uh congratulations. There's no increase proposed. This sets the ceiling for your assessment level for 2025 2026. Uh the reason you you can absorb any of the negotiated uh cost of living
increases to the solid waste provider is because we uh addressed the fund shortages several years ago, two years ago, and also the economy has uh leveled out a little bit in the fuel and such. So you're in good shape. You don't need
to increase your rate to absorb a 4.6 6% uh cost of living. That's all good news. You're supposed to be happy. It's hard. Paul, thank you. I appreciate that. I I
love to give good news once once a decade. So, Paul, thank you. Um I'll go ahead and ask uh if the commission has any questions for Paul or any questions about the uh the resolution. No, I have no questions question about that. But I just want to ask the rest of you guys, and I don't know if if we've ever even
gotten an answer, and I know it's a top secret mystery that uh the the waste people don't want to share what they actually do with recycle, but one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, them putting recycle stuff in garbage truck, garbage stuff, and recycle truck.
So, and and obviously that's an added expense, right? So, the question's always been, well, are you actually recycling this? Did we have we ever gotten an answer or is it still like a a top secret uh you gota you know do a blood oath to get that kind of information? Uh I know that the question
has come up several times. I don't think we've ever received a firm answer. you I if you don't mind you did send correspondents to Dade County Recycling for to ask somebody to come speak to you to give a a report or whatever and uh it was no
the only thing we ever discussed was the fact that they lost their transfer site in a fire so you know that's a question I think that is important for us to ask because if they're actually not recycling and we have that extra pickup every every listen recycling is wonderful if it's happening the question
is is it happening And if we can cut back the expense of that extra pickup because there's no recycling or they're not recycling, then that's something that we should look at. Yes. No. Look, I agree. Um the question procedurally for for
you, Paul, is if we want to get an answer to that question, do we approve at this at at the increase because it's before us or do we have time to bring them here before we approve it? And if not, can we bring them in afterwards and adjust it accordingly? Uh in this
situation, you're setting the maximum amount the assessment could be. Should the vendor come back with, hey, I can save you money and you you it won't be enough. But ask the vendor imagining this is this as a possibility, they you could lower the rate, but I I don't
anticipate that whatsoever for an increase actually. So they they they will receive an increase. Your contract with them is a negotiated contract each year uh with the cost of living and the fuel indexes and stuff like that. the manager negotiates it. We anticipated uh
this, you know, at least this amount of money, so we're fine. Uh so you're setting the ceiling for the assessment. You're not signing a contract. You're not doing anything about anything with solid waste. You're just setting your rate. Say we can always lower it, but this is the maximum we can go. And that's a the
it's a great question I would love to see addressed, but it's a question for the manager. Maybe a presentation with our vendor or with my county. You all know the answer. And set setting the ceiling gives you if if hypothetically the leverage that you can't go any higher.
Good. My favorite thing. Any other questions for for Paul or for about the um about the item? No. Okay. Well, Paul, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate your uh your time and your information. Happy to. And the public hearing will be coincide with the budget. Budget
hearing. I'm sorry. Say that. Can the public hearing will coincide with the first budget hearing? Uh that that makes sense. Um the first budget hearing um you've set the rate so we're fine with trim and everything if if this passes.
You haven't established your first problem. No, I have not. The clerk said that. No, I haven't covered from day county yet. So So I'll I'll deal with it. So, can we can we pass this now without the dates and you'll fill the dates in when
we get that information? I'll I'll revise I'll revise the resolutions there. There's quite a bit of time for the advertisements for this. I'll basically indicate that the dates are to be set. That's legally sufficient. It's okay. Yeah. Okay. Um All right. So, uh if
there's no other questions at this time for Paul on the item, um do we have This will need to be a voice a voice vote. Okay. Because of tax assessment in Avalor. All right. Well then, Madam Clerk, would you uh Mayor G. Yes.
Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Yes. Commissioner Ansler. Yes. Commissioner Huntington. Yes. Commissioner Sumera. Yes. The item passes 50. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Paul, thanks again. Um Okay. All right. So, uh that
wraps up the resolutions. So that brings us into our new business and as amended we bumped up our 14E the village manager selection process to our first item. So let's get started with that. Um is there any introduction or anything that we
have from uh our manager of the evening? I think he's going to defer to me. Okay. So, any introduction you'd like to give us before we get You all have had the the applications of of the um the potential
candidates. Um what you need to do tonight is essentially determine how how you want to how you want to select your candidates that you want to invite to public interview and also who those candidates are and when you'd like to
have the public interview and what other if any vetting process you want to do. other, you know, a meet and greet with the community, whatever, whatever it is you want to decide to do. Okay. Um, anything further or we're good to go from there? We're good to go from there. Okay. Great. So, I know that turning
back to to the early discussions on the selection process that we have before us. Uh, I know we we talked about um how it would be important for us to have the public be able to meet potential candidates, to ask them some questions, to be part of it. Uh, and we've heard from residents here this evening and in
advance of this evening that they they share the same desire. So, um, you know, I know that the way the other way that we've done this in the past with potential candidates is we all kind of identify our top several, however many we want to go with or, you know, we just go until we think we have several that,
you know, we're comfortable with or we'd like to move on to the next the next phase. Um, and then if we're all in consensus on which of those we want to have moved forward, we set the dates for those next step interviews. So, that's the way that we've done it before. Um, that's how I would anticipate it going
this evening. Um, all of us have had an opportunity to look at the resumes, look at the cover letters, you know, speak with whomever we choose. So, maybe um, set a process and then talk about which candidates we'd like to kind of fulfill the next steps of that process.
And Right. Well, I'm we could set the steps. I think kind of set the dates, set what we want to do, and then who among this list would then move on to that second process. We've only had one person drop out uh of the Yes. That's that candido. That was Mr.
Candido. Okay. Um go ahead. I think one in process that first off, I definitely think that we need to have the interviews done publicly. I think that's very important. the commission, you know, the residents need to hear it and then the process
after that is once we get the numbers down, we can then decide, you know, it should be done with a special commission meeting and then we get Yeah, I think I think the next I think the next step, and this was just something that I thought about coming into this meeting, was the next step would be I I think we could set a special commission meeting
where we'd conduct public interviews as we've done in the past and have the candidates who are interested be here, have an opportunity that's publicly noticed, invite the public to come, invite the public to meet them uh and you know provide their comment and then we'll conduct the interviews publicly and and we'll go from there. I think
that that would probably be the likely next step. Just just to set the record straight because I happen to interview all of them except for two and they all said if they're in let's say whatever the top uh five or 10 that they're willing to come down. So I want us to be
sure that we, you know, not take somebody because they're out of state, but that they're willing to come down as long as they're in the whatever that mean for the interview. Do you know for the interviews? Okay. Public interview. Okay. So that's just my thoughts on what the next step would be and I'm just open to what the commission feels would be
appropriate. Clarify the idea that's on the table now is to have a special commission meeting to interview every candidate on this list. No, no, no. Only have consensus only the ones that we have consensus to move forward to the next one. I don't know that it makes a lot of sense to in wouldn't want to invite anybody. We don't have consensus on Yeah. Look, I anybody's time. I
agree. Well, I agree with that, but I think if if one commissioner feels that they they have a candidate that they want to choose that the rest of the commission is not pick, he should be able to have the opportunity to have that candidate come. Well, I think that it makes I'm in on board with uh having consensus. Majority should be able to
decide at least, you know, what's the point to That's the way we've always done it. Yeah. And like what's what's the point of just selecting someone that the you know four other commissioners don't feel comfortable with. I mean that wouldn't pass because person personal interview I mean I I can't speak for any
other commissioners that have spoken I don't know if anybody's spoken to other candidates but to me speaking to the candidates better than the resumes. I mean I I a lot of people when I first when I was the first commissioner the first time I went by resumes I never really talked to anybody and I regret
that decision. uh you learn a lot from talking to I interviewed the people before I even looked at their resumes and I learned a lot. So that that's a good point because uh interviewing is always provides more of an insight. Um did all of you interview? I just want to
understand what was the process for you guys to come down now to a shortened list of selection. Was it just revising the the rest? I mean I call because I thought that's what we agree to do. Um, and so I interview majority as well that I thought would qualify, but I want to
understand what was the process for each one of you if you don't mind. No. Well, for me, I interviewed three of them. I did not interview. Uh, one didn't respond back to me and then uh Larry Tibs when I interviewed him told me that he wasn't going to I'm surprised he didn't drop out, but he told me he
wasn't going to do it because he had other projects. Yeah. President, city manager. I didn't interview. Okay. Um, but I interviewed all the other ones. That was my my way of doing it. All right. So, if I may, um, in all
fairness, I thought that it would be a good idea to, uh, let everybody very brief, uh, everybody that's on the list, you know, everybody that took the time to apply, um, do a brief presentation, you know, whatever, two, three minutes, whatever it is, uh, whether it's in person or whether it's by Zoom. Uh, and
so we get, you know, to see the actually see the person. Um, which visually is is is also important. Uh you know not for any other reason other than to see what you know the person themselves. Um and also to get a
feel for them. Um I I picked out my top five or my top four actually um simply by resume because there are certain things that I was looking that I was looking at. Um there are only uh three people that I've spoken to and the reason for that is because they've
actually reached out to me. um you know, they want the job, they should be reaching out to me. I shouldn't be chasing them to to to to get to get a job. So, I I've had three people reach out to me and I've spoken to those three individuals. Uh and they're actually on my list. Uh but not only because they
reached out to me, but also because their resume backs up their their their you know, the fact that they reached out to me. So that that's what I thought we could do, but you know, I'll I'll do whatever you guys want to do, but I think in all fairness, giving everybody two or three minutes, whether it's in
person or by Zoom. Um, so everybody can see them, everybody can hear them of your you mean your pre-selected, right? So those I've already pre-selected. No, I'm saying so three minutes of those that you pre-selected. I was thinking of giving everybody to thinking everyone whoever wants to But then what was the
point for today? So wait, so we we we decided this some time ago and we said today we were I mean that that was sort of the process. We we would have the time from uh April 14th. I think it was the closing date for résumés. Pamela um
11th no uh 11th until today. I mean it gives us enough time to you know assess who we want to I mean otherwise we would have called everybody uh to come forward and and have three minutes. I I I think I mean your idea of having them speak I
I I think asking questions by the commissioner is is very important and I it is but what I'm saying is I think we need letting them stand up there and talk for three minutes they're going to say what you want to hear. You've learned in the past that that doesn't work and asking questions like I might
ask a question that you know another commission might or you know the mayor might ask a question. Wow I didn't even think of that. That's a good question. Yeah. I think asking questions is more important than just allowing them to speak for three minutes. And yeah, I think I think that if this is a process that we I'm sorry to interrupt it, this
is a process that's very important. Special commission meetings, we have commission meetings that last four hours. I think this is very important and I think that it should take as long as it needs to take. Yeah. That special commission meeting. And the commissioner should be able to ask questions that they need because I'm going tell you the
questions that I asked I got from residents who helped me with questions because I wanted them since I worked for the residents I wanted to know what they had and the response that I got from them in person compared to with their resume. I said it's completely
different. Either they overblown their resume or they under but the questions that you have um commissioner Samaria are going to be for the people that are actually whittleled down. So if we say we're going to pick four, right? We decide we want to pick four individuals and we have consensus or do you want to
ask everybody on this list? I look we have a commission meeting. I mean I I don't want to spend four hours but this is a very important subject matter. I just asked what's the question? Go ahead. If if if this commission decides I think four having four people the residents residents don't trust us. They
really don't trust us. Okay. And we need to pick the right person. So we need to have a special commission meeting and if we decide that it's only seven people or you know eight people or whatever the amount is they would show up and then we would ask them the questions. Each commissioner gets to ask the question.
You might decide wow that guy uh answered a question that he's not part of my persons that I picked but he just responded. I just think it transparency is very important. We need to do this right. We have commission meetings that last for four hours. I'm not saying a special commission meeting should last
for four hours, but I realistically I believe we should interview all the candidates publicly. It wasn't done where the public can't see the resume. The clerk explained to me, the clerk explained to me, the clerk explained to me why the resume wasn't on the website.
Okay. And and I her answer was a good enough answer because I have some some information in in there that might be confidential. Yes. But I just think that this is a very important subject matter that needs to have where the residents see it. So we can decide how many. But I I'm not
comfortable with four. I'm be honest with you. I'm not comfortable with four. So saying we should interview them all. Yes. Or not interview them all. Actually give them an opportunity two three minutes to present their their case why they're the best candidate for this position. Then you got you just saw everybody. That's no I want questions.
Ask that each commissioner has a question that they might have for a candidate. You want a full interview? I want an interview. That is all right. So guys, I I I've already done that. So for me today, I came with a list of five that I would pre-seelelect for the next um opportunity for them to come over and
I would not limit those five to uh three minutes. I would uh have an open conversation. I would ask the questions that are needed and I'm hoping that would take us less than four hours. So that that's my process. I understand. Very similar. Uh I did not interview the candidates. I only talked to the ones
that contacted me. I figured if you want the job, contact me and my my uh phone number is public. Um but I went over the resumes. I researched every candidate and I did select three that were that jumped out to me. I will say my my criteria is is five things. It's Florida
experience. It's Miami date experience. It's ICMA accredited. It's your your education and your experience a number of years. And I weigh differently Florida experience, Miami day experience or just if you're village manager wherever you are for you know that's still counsel's experience and for me I
identify three candidates. So I'm comfortable inviting those three if there's consensus. I don't see a a reason to waste someone's time that there's no consensus or only one commissioner. I would hate for someone to travel here and spend their money to travel here just to hear one commissioner ask questions and thank you for your time. That's not what I want to
be a part of. So, I think um one of the very critically important things to me when I was going through these lists and and looking over resumes and and cover letters um is is based on the experience that we've had just in the last two years um which I find among the criteria
that you you've identified was um Florida but more specifically Miami date county experience. Um I think that we live in a very unique place um and the issues here are very unique to where we live. So that formed the basis of
of thinking that outofstate folks may not be the best suited for the job. Um out of outofstate folks may not be best suited for the job. Um so I find it very important that that these people our next manager has served in the state has served in our county and has um
connections here that that person can reliably use to benefit our village. Um I think the issues with the trees is a great example. Uh someone from another state may not understand you know the nuance of of how Australian pines non-native trees and those things work
here. So I think for my process that was very important. It was very important. So I have identified uh one two three four four folks um that I would like to have uh an opportunity for the commission to discuss with. Um I I
certainly think that it is of the utmost importance that those the folks that are here that that I think that you know we'll get on the process of consensus but I think it's of the utmost importance that they come here that they meet residents that residents have an opportunity to talk to them um because demeanor and interaction with residents
is very important too. Uh and this will give people an opportunity to do that. So, um I tend to believe that, uh consensus among the commission on who we would like to bring forward and look, if we get the people that we hypothetically, if we get the people here that we all think are are best
suited for the job and we're not terribly impressed, well, then the process continues, you know, we won't shut it down there and just pick someone just because that's what we agreed originally. We said it could. So, are we going to pick a number or are we going to just I I think I think
give four picks or whatever amount of picks it is because it it looks like I'm the only one that's going to have more than four picks. So, I want to see maybe my candidates that I pick might be in the ones that you have. I just think we're doing an injustice to the residents of I really do. Out of state
people, I'm telling you, there's reasons they're willing to come and be in Florida. They want this to be their their final I mean final job. You need to hear the interviews. I you know I really feel strong that you're you're you're not serving justice rights to
these candidates that are out of state because what we should have did is we should say from now on our city managers only should apply if they're in state because that's basically what everybody's here saying. I don't think that's what everyone said. No, I didn't say I'm just I don't think anyone say say that. No, I'm saying but you're but
but you're saying you're not picking you're saying you're not you think out of state people should not is not one of your criteria. I just think let's have each commissioner give their picks and then since I'm the last one that's good scenario then I'll give you my might be
the ones that I might agree with all the commissioners and then we can go on to the next step. Okay. Well then why don't we do that? How many people um I've I picked uh I had four candidates that I would I wanted to move on. How many? Well, I just want to know how many words were we we are going to list with names. I'm just trying to find out how many we
all want to to go with. I had four. Four. You have three. I had five. Okay. All right. Well, then let's just go down the list. Um I will tell you and I we just got to keep a record of it. So, we
have Okay. Uh my picks were Mr. Martell, Mr. Leonard, Mr. Childris, and Mr. Kosio. Sorry. Sorry. Which one? Sorry. Sorry. Martell. Correct. Okay. Martell. Leonard.
Chris. Childress. Childress. And Kosio. And Kosio. Martel is who? Oh, Martel. Sorry. Okay. Martel. Leonard. Childress. And who's it? Kosio.
Leo. Okay. Let's do the last. So you only you you got four, right? That's correct. Okay. So Chris, Martell, uh Al, and Leo, right? Got them. Beautiful. You want me to go next? Yes. Sure. Um I got Chris as well.
So you said you said Russo. I I said Martell. I didn't say Russo. What? I said Martell Leonard Childress Kosio. Okay. Oh, okay. Leonard. Got it. Who did you say? Um I said you said Russo.
Russo. Yep. Michelle. Uh Jordan Leonard. Yep. Okay. Uh Al Yep. And Leo Casio. Okay. Okay. I'll go next. Okay. I'm Childris, Leonard, and
Martell. And Okay. Um I have five. So I did I give you the five? Okay. So I have uh learner I have um Mendes Salinia Maglin
um Mendes Alina Maglin Leonard Pora and Kosio. Those are my five. Pa and Kosio. I'll start again. Uh, Mendes, Alinia, Mclofflin, Colossio, Leonard, and Pora. Okay.
Uh, I have, let's see, uh, I have six. Um, okay. Six. I have steel cost a porter. Was the second one? I'm sorry. Cost iOS. Sorry. Pronounced the name wrong.
Porter. Porter. Uh McDonald. Let's see. Porter. Oh, Portell. Sorry. Portell. Okay. Sorry. No, that's okay. McDonald. Okay. Got it. And Mlaken. and Lenn is another one. Seven. Yeah. Seven.
All right. All right. So, the consensus among the five that I've seen so far that well that we all have uh looks like and please correct me if I'm wrong uh but it looks like Leonard And consensus, by the way, is three or
more. Is that That's what we're going with. Yeah. All right. Three or more. Um Al Kosio. I don't know if we have any others. Those are the only three that we have. Three or more. Correct. For Leonard,
three for Childress, four for Kosio. Say it again. I got five votes for Leonard, three votes for Childress, and four for Kosio is my count right now. Looks correct to me. So, are the only three that we intersect across the
board? No, we Martell had a couple votes too, right? Not consensus. Not to reach consensus. So, just looking at the list, um, we had, if there's anyone that's interested in adding to their list or if they want to make any amendments, um, Martell had two, Pora had
two, had two, I believe. Sorry. Oh, yeah. And that was it. Those are the only those are the last folks that uh that are close. I'm sorry.
Two. I got two for that. Okay. So, it would be Yeah. So, three or more. So, consensus or more is uh Mr. Leonard, Mr. Childress, and Mr. Kosio. The same Florida. We have one individual name, Mr. Porter. I can't believe he's only. But anyway, that's I think it's
very Thank you. Uh I'm just think he's he's over he's qualified and even though he's our former chief is qualified, you know. Well, we want to
have, you know, mines is is Usain Leonard. Basically, we agreed upon two just you got Cost uh Porter Steel and Mlock, you know. I mean, I just feel strong about having it's it's only a difference of four more four. Just feel
strong. I I understand what you're saying, but there are several folks on other people's lists, too, that didn't reach the three required votes. And might change everybody's mind just by the way they talk. Look, we've we've we've talked about that already and it
the only the only viable solution to address that concern is to tell everybody to come here and that just doesn't make sense under the process that we're doing. I think that these people have an opportunity to come here and talk to our residents. If what our residents say, I'm not particularly impressed by that person or they have issues with it. And if we interview
those people and we say this just isn't it, then we go back to our list. We had we had consensus to go by consensus, right? And my my other concern too is that the longer this takes, the closer we get to a budget season. Um which we we need to have some some resolution by that time. I think I I I I'm not in
agreement with that. I think um um budget season is great. I mean, if if we can make it there, I'm with you. I would try to hit that, but it's important that we nail the right person in that period. Yeah, certainly. I'm not suggesting we don't, but I'm just saying I do have an eye towards that, I think, is all I'm Okay. Can I at least have from since you
had to can we have from the consensus at least give Mr. Porter? No. And and if I may add to that I understand what you're saying in terms of the interview process. Um so u I I build up a little Excel here just to understand if you don't mind um out loud saying it again
so I can tally them. Um Ryan. Yeah, sure. Your votes. My votes were Leonard Childris and Kosio. You're right. Children's and Russo. Is that what he said? Yes. Kosio Leonard
and Childress. And Childress. Sorry. So, okay. Yes. It was Martell. Uhhuh. Leonard. No, you don't know. Russo, Leonard, and Childress. What about you? Uh, I had
uh Kosio Kosio. Childress. Leonard and Martell and Martell. All right, Samaria, you had Steel Castello. One moment.
Steel steroing his name wrong. That's uh Porter. Yeah. Yeah. McDonald and Leonard. Those are my op.
And Art, what were your votes, please? Again. Uh, yes, ma'am. Give me a second here. I'll repeat. So, I I had Chris Russo. Yes. I had Jordan Leonard, I had Al, and I had Leo Casio. And you had Casio.
Okay. And I had and which is where's we had um Leonard as well. So I think that's the one and Mendes which
nobody Okay. So yeah it's it's a little bit all over the place. I understand the point of commissioner um Samaria about interviews. I mean I um I don't know how much you guys are missing out if you haven't interviewed in person. Uh you
know all of them. I mean um I get your point. I'm with you. I think a lot of people that doesn't call. I'm like always wondering how much you wanted. Um but but I reach out you know and I I got pleasant surprises with a lot of people. they're very
well well qualified, you know. Um, and I don't know how fair it is just to base it from resume, but just to have a conversation. So, I'm just putting it out there. That was my process. I am to to select this this five. All right. So, then if we have is that
did your spreadsheet numbers match up with what we'd said? I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you right now, that's correct. Can I can I place a vote an additional vote? Is that allowed? Where are we at with uh this Dan Pora guy person? How many? Two.
Two. All right. I'm gonna put another vote in for Dan Pora. All right. So, that would give that individual person. I like finance people. They That would be That would be three there. So, that would add to the list of three to add a fourth. Any of you want to add another person? If
not, it is still have my clock and that I want to add and McDonald. Yeah, but everybody's got I know. I know. That's all right. Take your time. the main ones and then you have one and
you added another vote expand. Yes. Uh Pa Pora. So So it goes Russo has two votes. Pora has three votes. Learner has four votes. There's none. Um Kosio has
four. Martell has one. Go has two. Manda Salinia has one. Um, Kenny has one, Childress three,
Steel one. So, the top ones will be Leonard, Osio, Gothlin, Pora. I'm sorry, I'm going to say it again. So, it's Pora, Leonard, Hosio,
and Childress. Those are the four. That's what I had. Agree. That's what I had. All right. I did it with a spreadsheet. I'm sorry, but I needed just to make sure we're we're all over the place. So, okay. All right. So, next step. So, uh again, I think the next step
would be to set a special commission meeting. Um preferably by, let's say, the end of the month. Then we can have, you know, a substantive discussion in June about how the the public interview process went, how the commission process or the commission interview process
went. I just think logically that that makes the most sense. I'm open to the ideas. Where you're going, there's not that many candidates say you should pick a city manager by June. Well, commission meeting. That's Yeah, I'm I'm absolutely I'm serious. Record it. So, you only have four people here.
The process at the workshop. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm just trying to say raising my voice. If if it goes the way that we expect it to go, if there's someone here that we all have the way you're gonna do a workshop. I just want to finish my thought. Sorry. Go ahead. If this goes the way that we expect it to go, we'll all interview these four
people. And if we all have if there's consensus on one of those four individuals, then yes, maybe we are picking that person by June. Maybe we should be picking it by June. It's dragging it on past. I I can't I can't say what's going to happen. The special commission meeting. I can't see in the future. It might be. or or we don't
after we meet all the four there may be somebody we don't like any of the four I I agree with that that's a question I had are we are we closed are we keeping open the the the position list again or no as of I'm saying because last time we
did it we didn't do that if you remember there was a there was a an some time in the middle between our interview and our selection process which we kept the applying open people that have already applied. I'm saying we did that. We did
that and actually that's how Chris came up about. Well, we've identified a process now. We close applications. Yeah. We've conducted research to have somebody else jump in. Following instructions is important. And if the deadline was there, the deadline was there. If you didn't get your
application in time, yeah, if we if we go through these four and and there's not a consensus of the four to hire anybody, then we'll reopen applications. Yeah, the first step in any application, any job is you follow instructions. If you didn't get it in by that time, yeah, no, I agree. It's true. I was bringing
that was a process follow before and I think it was just to to get more applicants for teen was was good. We we have a good set. So So can I ask everyone if you set a special commission meeting for the end around the end of May? Makes sense. Is that something that we agree on? Yes. Okay. And this will be
of course it'll be publicly noticed. We'll encourage members of the public to be there. Should we decide the date? I mean, we're Yeah, we we definitely should we should decide on a date, but I'm just asking if that's what everyone wants to do. If that's the case, then let's look at dates and see if we can uh if the clerk can reach out to each of
those four candidates to make sure that they can be here in person. If they should be here in person if they want to meet with members of the public. Um, but let's look at those let's look at those dates. So, Brad is bringing a very valid point here. Just on timing. So, you're all Yeah. And I know you all know this.
I'm just mentioning obviously if you select somebody at this special meeting there's still the process selecting anybody at the well I'm just we may select them at the at the next commission meeting so if you whenever you select
still the process of negotiation salary terms right and entering into absolutely okay I'm just giving you for timing sake no and I want to understand so what you're saying we can select it on the on the So you're saying it's not going to be
selected on the interview process meeting. What if we all agree to someone that we all feel comfortable with? I'm saying that you can move to negotiations and establish it as a Yeah. Right. Well, so that's the point I was
just going to make. If it's going to be a special meeting, then if we feel we have consensus at that time, then we can take that action if we so choose. Initial idea was for the residents to see them, right? Mhm. Then for the residents to have input and if we select that person that night, we're not going
to get input a lot of input from residents. Right. So if there if I mean it's it's May what? 6 today. No, no. I'm talking about for after the interview. If we if we interview people here, right, here in person, right? There may be two or three people that show up, but then there's other people that watch
them on video and whatnot, right? And then they'll have input that they'll send us about what they thought about about what they thought about the part particular I don't know I I don't agree guys we we have to hire we have I agree but but about getting input from let me
let me just finish my point please finish it's important go ahead if we don't go through the ourselves we had a month to interview these people I've done that I've interviewed at least 10 of them so
I'm very comfortable to come forward today, I would have already selected of who needs to come, you know, for for the next phase. The next phase is to interview them publicly. That's what I'm saying. Publicly, we'll interview them. I think if we all get consensus, it's a sign that we're in a good track. So, if
if we all find the right, are we going to post it for a debate for the public? Are we what what are we hoping to happen next after that? That's the part I don't understand. It's literally a couple of days later because do it towards the end of May, right? Yeah. Then the first the
first uh Tuesday of June, we have our meeting and then we give residents a few days to provide us input. I'm sure we're going to get emails. Hey, this person that whatever whatever they feel so that they have a certain amount of input. If you want to make listen, I'm good with
making I hire people all the time. I don't care. I'll hire somebody tonight. But what the point is not that. The point is that to give residents, we've been talking about this the entire night. Let's get resident input. Let's get resident input. And so now we're saying no, we're just going to make the
decision and residents have no input. So residents have had since a month to go over the resumes the same way. They don't have the resumes. I mean, not a month. Sorry. Oh, they don't have the res. They haven't seen the resumes. Okay. In my head, that's why I'm thinking we all have the opposition. Oh,
yeah. But they don't. That's the point. I apologize. That's the point why I was making I see what you're saying to have these residents. That's why for me it's like it's been sitting there. We we've we've had opportun to see, you know, if anybody had comments, but I agree. Then let's, you know, by name that's all we have that's true on the agenda. So, we
don't have the background. I understand now. All right. I'm okay with that. And we'll select on the 20 whatever we decide now. So, what the I would say, you know, let's let's give enough time to provide for adequate noticing so that people know that it's coming. I would
say probably the last week in May. Yeah. I'd say probably the 27th or the 28th. Oh, that's the you got Oh, that's Memorial Day. Shoot. Can't have it every week. And so the next commission meeting will be what date, uh, Pamela? Um, June 3rd. Thank you. Third. Okay. So I think
it's critical Pam that when we announce this that we we we tell residents it's very if if if you want to have input it's critical that you attend via person or via Zoom and you will have a certain amount of time to provide input to the
commission so that we can hear your opinions on the on the different individuals right and then we will be making a decision uh on the ne hopefully in the next commission meeting hopefully if we all if we we have consensus, but it's important the communication piece
to the residents, you know, the Biscane Park app, uh, email blast, next door neighbor, the whole kitten kaboodleoodle. Yeah. Okay. Um, my question is, you want the residents notified for the special
meeting or for Absolutely. But when is the special meeting? Oh, that we haven't decided that yet. That's the next part. That's what we're working on right now. So the 26th, which is in about three weeks, that's Memorial Day. Do we want to go before or after Memorial Day? I'm
I'm I I want to do this tomorrow. But you you guys tell me. I don't care. Do this within next week. It's Yeah. So what about the 21st? I'm good. Whatever that is. I don't know what day it is, but I'm fine. Well, so that's I'm trying to be sensitive to giving these candidates enough time to have noticed
that we are asking them to be here for that time period. The only one that would have is Mr. Porter. I mean, there are people have schedules. I'm just trying to be sensitive to everyone's. Yeah. So, the 21st would probably be the earliest I would want to do it. That's two weeks. Can we do it on the 22nd,
please? Thursday. 22nd. Thursday the 22. There no special meetings. There's no planning and boarding zone. I don't see anything on the calendar, but I'd be fine with that. I may not be here on the 22nd. That's what I'd be looking at. The 22 starting six o'clock. Yeah. It just
rolls off your tongue. 2 like it everyone's comfortable with the 22nd. Yes. Um yes. Okay. Is that if there are any issues with availability I mean look the these individuals are interviewing for the job I would hope that absent any exigent circumstances or emergency
circumstances that they should be available uh hopefully by then. Uh preferably. Why? Yes. That's what we are looking at. six o'clock, right? Yes. Correct. And from there, uh, you know, not getting too far ahead of clarity,
are we ruling out selection that night or are we is purely Look, I think what we do, sorry, I apologize. Uh, I think what we do is I think we said it is a special commission meeting. So, if there's any action that we want to take that evening, we are empowered to do so. But I am more comfortable with the
prospect of getting these people in front of the in the public. I think we have an understanding now and then hopefully at June being the next time that we readress them. June 3rd. Correct. I I'm I'm in agreement with that. I didn't realize that. Yes. That everybody hasn't seen the resume. So yeah, because that could be a rather
lengthy conversation, the selection. Do we want to set a special commission meeting before a commission meeting just to handle that? Say like four o'clock. We'll have consensus by the time we're done. Uh unless, you know, we get input
and we start seeing things that we did. I think I think we're kind of going to have an idea of which way we're going to go. I don't think the election process is going to be that long. I think I I really I mean let's Well, let's take a step back. Maybe it will be, but hopefully not. This is Biscane Park.
Yeah. Yes. Have their interview on the 22nd, correct? that the selection will take place on June sorry on June 3rd most likely likely at the meeting. Well, yeah, that's that's what's anticipated. Yes. And they do not need to be here on
the 3. That maybe I assume they're not in in person, but I mean ideally they can they will be watching have a presence be it virtual or watching if not here. Okay. Having said that, I I now that we do have we've
whittleled it down to four, I will be speaking. I think it was one that I haven't spoken to in my list. Um, so I will be reaching out to that person just to get an idea of, you know, who they are because I I haven't spoken to them. So again, I think and I think that that's kind of I think we should keep it
as a special commission meeting in case there's any type of action that we want to take at that time, but I think it's going to be interviews of the potential man village manager candidates. Okay, that it. Uh, are we going to uh obviously we're
going to allow them to do a brief introduction of who they are and then are we going to have written questions or is everybody going to allow be allowed three questions, five questions, 20 questions? What? Why do you keep shaking your head? Just I think we need to do whatever you want, but just say the what you feel.
Your mic's not turn on the microphone. The commissioner should be allowed to ask as many questions. I mean, how long are you expecting this meeting to last? The way you're talking with four people, you expecting it to last only an hour. I just think we need to be asking as many questions as a commissioner feels he needs to ask. Okay. Well, good with
that. I just I'm just asking a question. You got four four commissioners. You got four hours. I think a limit every commissioner or sorry, excuse me, every candidate to to an hour each. That caps the questions. If you're asking questions past past an hour, you should have got your question in in an hour. I
agree with you 100% and I don't think it's I don't think it's going to take me an hour to ask my question but I I have not truthfully I asked all the candidates I had a total limit there should be limit I had a total of 10 has a a chance to speak I think one hour per candidate for four hours yes I agree
their no and that's I I'm sorry again I apologize uh what do you call I I have 10 questions and I spec when I interviewed them I told them they have to come right to the point they can't drag their answers is for you know on they have to really come to the
point and I don't have a I have like 10 questions that's what I ask I I think 10 to 15 minutes for an introduction then the remaining time of the hour for each candidate say tops all right I think 10 minutes got the resume you don't need 10 minutes
tops 10 10 minutes for them to to them then give their introduction and their the rest will be for questions from the commission I think that that's more than fair 10 minutes. I think that's 10 minutes. Yeah. No, I understand. I understand. You want to be very clear.
So, what I understand the consensus of the commission is is 10 minute the the the candidates have 10 minutes to do an introductory presentation, however they choose to do it, and then the remaining 50 minutes will be left open for the commission to ask questions. Right. if
if it even goes that long. If it takes less, it takes less. So, but at least this way the candidates know to prepare for the meeting that whatever presentation take would be at least no more than 10 minutes. I think that makes sense, but I would ask the commission if
there is consensus on that. Yes. Yes. M clerk, you good? Answer. No. 10 and 10 and 50. Face. Perfect. Um good question uh that just came up.
So it in terms of what we can ask are there any restrictions as to we can ask you know no yeah I would stay away from anything like that of course age marital a yeah anything that's protected age marital status sexual preference are
there still things protected I thought we changed that not yet not yet though but I mean pretty much I mean pretty much the rest of it is fair game. Okay, I think we've concluded. At what I have another question. At what point do
we start negotiations? Is it once we have a final person selected? I mean, we learned a little bit on on that last time around. Um, is it something we just pick the last one, you know, last one standing negotiation with or is the last two like last three and based on that we
how does it work? I think it gets a little messy if you're negotiating with more than one at least. No, but I'm saying, you know, you can you can ask about what the range of salary expectations could be. Those questions are fair game if you're states, what do you expect the salary and benefits to be? So, that's part of your You can ask
that before the interview. You can literally call them up and just ask them that question. You know, you you're already going in there knowing exactly what I agree. I agree. I agree. I would agree with that. I think it because because as as we had with Mr. Childress and I think you noticed with Mr. through it. I really don't have the authority to
to negotiate unless you're going to give me the guidelines. You're kind of negotiating from the do from the dis some extent. Yeah. Okay. And when we bring the agreement back to you for approval, that gives you the opportunity kind of negotiate further. If there's a
provision in it, no matter what it is that you're not comfortable with, the candidate the the selected person is there and you can have that discussion and I'll tailor the agreement to what you all agree with because otherwise you're giving me in public what your guidelines are which means they know
what they are and right. Yeah. Done. Okay. Um, all right. Well, I think we have a clear path forward. Um, so we'll be looking forward to our special commission meeting on that day. And I think I Huh. Yeah. 22nd. Sorry. 26 22nd at 6
o'clock. Okay. Um, all right. So, we moved some discussion items around. Uh, our next one was discussion on the ordinance for special assessment. Uh I know that uh this was something that I believe that this was something that Al brought to us
to our attention. I I was almost kind of wondering the same. I I I did bring this up to to to Dave Kovello um and he didn't really have any independent recollection of this. You can either move it when Al gets here
or I can address I I think Yeah, I think that's probably best. So, do we have consensus to table 14B until uh Mr. Children's returns? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. So, uh Miami Shores Aquatic
Center was next up. All right. So, if I will, uh Mr. Mayor, uh, can I make a motion that we limit discussion to 5 minutes for the commissioner who brought this item and three minutes for every remaining commissioner? You're right. There's not Well, let's just let's let's go until we
get to the end and if we got to extend um um yeah, I think it's very straightforward, guys. you have in front of you. Um this was a product of uh work behind for a long time. Um getting in
contact with the commission for the shore of the council uh different council members for the shores. Um I got interest from one of them um council member Canour which I'm very grateful for having the spend the time with me to
meet with me and uh Leis with me in terms of what possibilities could there be for us. Um he did do some background check in terms of numbers and met with internally with staff to come back to this offer. Uh obviously it's not an
official offer because he cannot do that. Um the idea is just to get a sense of what that mean that looks to us. Are we interested if this would be something he could bring to the commission of the shores to the council of the shores. Um so I want to hear your thoughts.
Basically they're asking 30 grand uh for the usage of the aquatic center for weekdays only and uh the weekdays only. And it's uh you know in reference to what Bay Harbor
currently has is it's uh cheaper but at the same time uh you know it takes away the the the weekends and we're also less people. So I had I had done some analysis in terms of cost. I'll save it from that. Um I'm just here to answer
your questions basically and and gather sort of a sense how you want to move forward. I I remind you this all started because we had several um residents that were hoping that we make this happen. And like I said in the letter that's attached in the in the
um in the item, this wasn't just because we need the use of the pool, but also because uh residents want to be able to connect connect with the the the neighboring municipality. A lot of things happen at the aquatic center. um
you know unless you can get in um with someone you can make that happen. So um if you look into the strategic plan all the comments we receive and you look at to how many people were accounting for pool it was a a large amount. So this tackles you know how do we not build a
pool ourselves and the cost that and that that it takes and maybe an example of a partnership that we can create. So the rest is up for you guys. I have a quick question. Um, so this $30,000 is this uh multipleyear agreement or is
this just one-year agreement? No, this is for us to So this is for now. No agreement has been in place. No, I I'm just asking did they talk about multiple years or is this 30,000 just for one year? For one year. So next year it could be 40, next year could be 50. Could be if we don't negotiate it. Right
now the the to give you reference, Bay Harbor has had the same agreement for several years. hasn't been changed and it's on a yearly basis and it's 50 that's attached to the Yeah, because they're much bigger municipality. Not much bigger. There are 5,000 people, is it?
Yep. Um, so it's not much larger. That's what I'm saying. So, I did comparisons in terms of capital, in terms of household, you know, how do you look at it? I have different ways to go about negotiating. I'm not going to waste my time if you guys feel it doesn't deserve it. Um all I bring it up is just I want
to take your questions and see if there is a room for discussion with them. Bring that back and say well we are looking to see you know AB or C as a as a next step. So I'm with uh excommissioner Bob Anderson about
spending $30,000 on our rec center instead of this. Uh I think it's our rec center is more used will be more used. It is more used than this is ever going to be. Uh, and I think this is a very select group of individuals that will will utilize this and I think that that money is better used in the in the rec
center. Yeah, I I tend to agree. Uh, you especially because it's weekdays only and it's only for their operational season. That's 55 days. So, it comes out to $550 a day. We can actually rent it for birthday parties cheaper than that. Yeah. So, I called I was like, "Hey, how many how much for a birthday party for
20 people?" And they said it was 500 bucks. Yeah. You can rent it for a birthday party cheaper than that. Um, but you have to be a member of the shores to rent. Yes. Uh, so you wouldn't be have access if you're a resident of the same park. So, it's not a comparison. I understand. And trust me, this would benefit. No, no, you just
said benefit me. I co I call if I could get in, you couldn't. That's the whole point of this. My my uh I and I feel the same thing. I I see this as a want versus needs. And I really wish we had the the ability to do this because if we took care of our needs for the last 10 years, I would say spend the $30,000.
Yeah. Yeah, but we have a lot of of needs around here. Uh so for me, the only other alternate path forward I would say if they could negotiate a access with a much larger entry rate for because right now I know residents pay $7, not non-residents guests pay 14.
Maybe there's a $20 per person fee that we don't pay anything or we pay 5,000 bucks just to get access and our residents have to pay more but they still get that access. That might be a a compromise. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as that. It's just not a price uh sort of a negotiation. This has to do
with the ability of the space uh and how much of the capacity is a disposable for the shores. For me, like I said, it's it's wants versus needs and we have a lot of needs. Yeah. Okay. Well, it it pains me a little to hear it
because I I I mean, I have kids, you know, I I know my kids, a lot of the families, you know, would have really been able to use it because it's it's a cost benefit for, you know, not doing a pool ourselves. So, I I understand I very much appreciate you following up on this. Yeah. Um I've certainly would have
liked to have seen it get over the the hump, so to speak. Yeah. Um but uh I think I think we have sounds like there's a consensus that I think also to to the point because I agree I mean we always we have to be very tidy with
every dollar. Um I would ask if uh you all agree we wouldn't kill it and sort of park it until next year to see how this new manager or you know a situation comes along and budget season
discussions um sees or not feasible. Um so because this this wouldn't be anything we would desire right now and I think unless we have a budget in front of us um we wouldn't be able to contemplate it. So if it's okay with you guys, I would park it until we are
talking by department and we see what our CIP looks like, what our bud budget for wreck looks like and and at that point, you know, say no to it because we have no money or say yes, consider it for next year or just a sold, you know,
no. I I I'm more than comfortable with that. But yeah, I'm comfortable with that. But bear in mind that it comes back 30,000 for this or 30,000 for, you know, new park equipment. I'm going to say 30,000 for new park. I think it's fair, but I would
just ask not to cancel until we have budgets in front of us that we can talk about, you know. If you are in agreement with that, uh, I'm certainly in agreement with that. Okay. All right. We have Do you have consensus for this?
I think so. I think so. All right. I I appreciate your efforts, Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um well, seeing the time we're at 9:58, we have one discussion item um remaining. I don't know. Uh well, we're not going to have time and
Yeah. Uh kind of minutes, very apt. I Well, I don't I think um the uh the commissioner who's sponsoring it, I don't think uh is planning on staying past the the 10:00 deadline. Um, so then, uh, I guess we would request that that item be moved to the next
commission meeting. Uh, we didn't get to our reports, so my apologies to to our departments, um, and the people that were here for it. Um, sorry. Well done, Isa.
Thank you, Isa. Perfect. All right, everyone. Well, uh, having said that, I'll request a motion to adjurnn at this time. Motion to adjurnn. To do I have a second? All in favor? I. I. We're adjournment. Thanks, everyone. Thank
you.