All right. All right. Let's go ahead and get started. How we looking? Full moon. Shout out to Full Moon. The special council meeting for Tuesday, August 12th, 2025 is called to order at 6:38 p.m. First, we're going to have a moment of sight of meditation followed by a pledge of allegiance.
Pledge to the flag of the United States of America stands nationy and justice for all. Very much roll call, please. Roll call. Mayor Nickerson
here. Vice Mayor Martin. Council person Urban present. Council person Lifewood Ward. Council person Winters present. Also present for the record, Christy Louu, village manager. Janice Jacobe, village clerk. And in lie of um attorney Geller is attorney Johnson. You have a quorum. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
Madam clerk, may I have a motion to approve the agenda? So move. Moved by council war. May have a second. Second. Second by vice mayor Martin. All in favor say I. Say nay. Hearing none. Moving on to the first resolutions is the storm drain 205 Northeast 86th Street. Mr. attorney. Uh, could you read
that into the record for me? Resolution E1 regarding storm drain at 205 Northeast 86th Street. A resolution of the village council of the village of Elporttowal, Florida of Miami Day County, Florida approving proposal for
replacement of the great and asphalt at 205 Northeast 86th Street for the village of Elporttowal of Miami Day County providing for incorporation of recitals providing for an effective date. Thank you very much. Appreciate that, Mr. Attorney. Um, do you have any
questions or comments from the council? I would like to ask a quick question. uh reading through this, are are there any penalties for the construction company if they take longer than expected for the I think at least five months for the to complete.
Good evening. Um this is a a a replacement and repair of a storm drain that exists, so it should be way less time than All right, take it back. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments, council? Hearing seeing none any questions or comments
from the audience about the storm drain come say your name and address for the record. Thank you Mr. Mayor. My name is George Alvarez 165 Northwest 88th Street. Um, I had uh uh emailed about about this um
this weekend. I was kind of I I did a little walking because I'm very lucky and I walk when it rains. Uh but I also kind of drove through like the east side uh between Northeast 2nd Avenue and uh
4th Avenue Road gets delued. It's really I'm on I live on the west side. It's a little bit uh easier. So, obviously there's some drainage issues on the east side, but why I I'm hoping somebody can
answer this question. I I know that there's there's a bid from a a Shannidoa company. I can't imagine there's a rep from them, but why did it get so bad in one spot? And if it is a French drain to nowhere because we can't drain into the
river, why is a a French drain that is theoretically no wider than one maybe two residential yards cost that much? Uh and secondly, where where does it drain?
Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from the audience? Come on up. Say your name and address for the record. I got you. Take your time, sister. I'm with you. I'm with you. Hello, council and um community. My name
is Veronica Hunt. I'm a 28, I think, resident of Albert House. The drainage has been an issue the 28 years I've been here. It's supposedly a runoff from Har's man. Supposedly when they bit the field, it runs off to the low edges and I'm in one of the drowning zones. When
it rains, it floods. I think the council is aware and we're still waiting on improvement. 28 years. So that's my comment. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments about
the storm drain? Any other questions or comments about the storm drain? Okay. Hearing seeing none, back to the council. Um, madame manager or I don't know if Mr. Thampy to address the
questions by Mr. Alvarez. I can speak a little bit to at least specifically the area around northeast 2nd to northeast 4th place north of 87th street meaning just the next couple blocks up here. So, um, uh,
I kind of got the story from my neighbors when I moved in 13 years ago on our block, for example, in front of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I think
all except for the last house on our block across the street from my house is a solid line of concrete swale, like asphalt concrete swale. So the entire swale in front of seven homes doesn't exist except for a concrete patch. I was
told that years ago, like I don't know, 20 30 years ago. That's all right. Uh they had anticipated septic sewer happening. And so somebody on that block paid out of pocket to dig up the street and lay I think 24 inch pipe underneath
the street or something crazy. Might only be 12, but it was big. It was like a big pipe they put underneath the street and then paved over it and then sewer never came and all these years later. So, I will say that um concrete swailes and non-permeable swailes is um
typically a significant part of the equation when we run into full street flooding. It's not the full answer. Uh but at least in that in that corner of the neighborhood, I will say on on a couple streets, it seems like there have been efforts in the past to pave over uh
swailes that had been essentially uh you know, open ground or ground cover, trees, that kind of thing. So at least over there, just north of village hall here, um uh that seems to be a significant problem as far as why there's standing water in the street long after it rains.
Very much council personal. Um, I will answer Mary about the um this particular drain. This is a not a French drain. This is an outfall to um the canal, but there's a system that's in place presently. It's been there for a number of years. This drain is consistently
clogged because of its location. It's in um the swale. um this area is is the repair of of that um existing um storm drain and also an enlargement of the great and the apron to kind of prevent it from clogging so quickly. And so this
is um this is you know what we've had assessed um and our engineer went on site several times and um and have worked with other contractors and looked at it. And so this is the the repair that's needed just to at least uh give
some relief for that particular drain. Um we do have a storm um water master plan that we are conducting within phases. We're still in phase one um due to funding. So we are still awaiting some kind of funding that will help us with uh phase one to finish it which is
an outfall in the um Elhardin area and then the next step which is phase two would be this area. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from the council? I have a question. This is This is Dr. Ward.
I got a question. Go ahead. Because I don't I don't read anything that says the problem's going to stop. I read we're going to we're going to improve on it, but I don't read where it's going to stop.
That is a question. Well, again, it will repair the existing drain. it will allow it to function properly or better and uh will eliminate the um congestion in that um in that
particular drain. But in terms of curing flooding, no, this is not we're not con this is not phase two of the storm water master plan as we're addressing storm water improvement. We're just fixing a a drain.
Thank you. I have another question. Uh so since this is at the entrance to Sherid Forest, there's also a park right there. And of course, we've already discussed this park in many meetings and that parts of the park's water systems don't work and that we can't actually
touch them because of I guess archaeological reasons. Um will this drain also help the spots on the other side of the park where we also have uh puddling as well? No, this is not at the park. It's maybe two uh doors away from the park. This is
more uh is closer to northeast 2nd Avenue. It's 100 ft away. Maybe is maybe a bit more. But nonetheless, there is a storm drain that is um that services the park. This one is for that outfall that goes right to the canal.
Correct. It's on the uh west side of the park. Correct. This is on the um west northwest side of the street of the street. right
away from the park. Thank you. Yeah, it's right in front of a property that's like three houses in on the north side from 8 from Northeast Second Avenue. Any other questions or comments from the council? Okay. Hearing seeing none, do
you have another question? No, you can't. Yeah, thank you. Will the um repair also fix the drainage on the further northwest side? I understand all the beautiful improvements on the east side that are
being done and it looks marvelous, but what about the forgotten side on the northwest side? Is the drainage going to fix that side? They always start on the east side. The east side looks beautiful. I appreciate it, but come on the northwest side on the other side of
Horus, man. Is that gonna is it going to fix that side? They start, they stop. Nothing's done. We flood. We walk in water. I saw some construction. I got real excited and then it stopped. So, is this like um Dr. Award said, a band-aid,
an improvement? What is it going to be? Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else? Because this is the public comment form right now. It was closed, but I'm I'm going reopen it real quick. So, we have to do public comment and then we have to close public comment to bring it back to the council. So, is there anybody else
for public comment? Just say your name, address for the record. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Him Pinto, 440 Northwest 90. Where can we see the plans of of the
repairs or the replacement of the of the crate that is being done and the cost? There was a supplemental document um I can print out, give it to you. It was on the agenda. It was a supplemental document with the agenda that went when the agenda went out, it was part of the agenda. It was a supplemental document
that went out that had information on it with that information that was on there. Perfect. Thank you. Because I can give it to you. I'm a civil engineer and a general contractor. So to try to clarify, it says here that is a repair. Mhm. So, I don't think that this is a like a
big improvement where you're dealing with a xfiltration trench or a whale or it seems that it's just replacing uh it says here replacement of grate and asphalt. Correct. That's all, right? Correct. Perfect. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else public comment? Okay. So, we're going to close public comment and bring it back to the council for this particular item. All right. So, um yeah. So, this doesn't affect or doesn't deal with the west side of El
Pile. This is a storm drain that's right over here at the end of Sherwood Forest. And this is to repair that particular storm drain. We're going to regrade it and repair that particular storm drain. So, it's not like a dig through the storm drain system. It's just that particular storm drain that we're
repairing. Any other questions or comments from the council hearing? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve? Moved by council person like foot war. Do you have a second? Second. Second by vice mayor Martin. M cl.
Roll call. Council person Winters. Yes. Council person lifewood. Yes. Council person. Yes. Vice Mayor Martin. Yes. Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Motion passes five to none. Thank you very much, Mr. attorney. Um, if you can can you read the uh the next
one into the record? E2. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor. Resolution E2 regarding Horseman Middle School Safety Roundabout Engineering Services. A resolution of the village council of the village of Elportal of Miami Day County, Florida, approving a
proposal for professional engineering services for the Horus man middle school safety roundabout project at Northwest 2nd Avenue and Northwest 91st Street providing for incorporation of recitals providing for an effective date. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Any questions or comments from the
council? Seeing none, let's move to the audience. Any questions or comments from the audience for E2? name, address for the Hi, I'm Noel Pace, live at 206 Northwest 91st Street. Uh we're on the southwest
property that's uh regarding this intersection there uh just north of uh the Horus Man Middle School. And yes, I I I do see the resolution. Uh I do know that this was a project that was proposed over two years ago. There
were some initial discussions uh with the village manager. There was some initial plans that were proposed. Um the thing is is that uh it's been lying dormant for about two years. Okay, more than two years. And you know, we got
notice of this a a week ago yesterday that construction was going to be starting today. And if you look at what was sent out by Yianice, uh good information. The thing is is that all I've seen is sort of uh uh architect
plans. I mean, there's no renderings of what the traffic circle will look like. There's no renderings of how, you know, things will change. It's just it's just basically stick and pencil drawing. I'd like to see a rendering especially now with with the you know CAD and other
type of systems. I mean you can now use AI to create exactly how this traffic circle is going to look. It does say with a appropriate landscaping but what's it going to look like? Is this going to be a circle with a you know a bunch of concrete or is it going to actually be something aesthetically pleasing which is really sort of the
entrance to Elortala on the west side. We have a nice uh circle here. There's landscaping here. It's sort of the same way over there. The other thing is is that it does affect um our property where we're going to lose some of our hedge. We're going to lose part of a wall that was constructed. Uh you know,
and there's a question with the architect there if there were permits. Uh yes, actually the council approved uh remember when I went back in the file, we bought this house in 200 uh I think we moved in in 2012, we purchased in 2015, you know, Horus man middle school and if
you're if you're familiar with the area, there are tons of children at the end of the school day for pickup. The school buses go in and out through this intersection. All the kids and their parents come and everyone parks on the swailes there and so on. And so our
particular property actually had a wall built around it because uh the children were trespassing into the area. It's an attractive nuisance. Our neighbors uh have a swimming pool that's there. And so I just would like to see better renderings. I'd like to see more information. I'd like to see a better
plan. And I mean the fact is it's just unfortunate that the construction is starting the first week of school. Like I mean I you know I don't know if it could have been I mean I don't know. I mean, not to hear anything for two years. We live there. Uh, you know, we
see the kids from school every day. I mean, obviously, my wife, the former mayor, has her own private school here. We see the children all the time. We do transportation. Anyway, I just think that this probably, even if it's a resolution, I'd like to see more
information. I'd like to make sure that our uh entrance and egress to our property is is properly handled. if we have to uh you know adjust that wall that there's proper funding you know that goes into this project that we'll adjust it and so on. That's all. Just a
you know something reasonable not too much but good enough. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Any other questions or comments regarding the um circle? How you doing? over there. Huh? I wasn't paying
attention. I was a little nervous. Hey, I'm Denise. 173 Northwest 88 Street. Um, since I was 12. I've been here since I was 12. Right. Okay. So, Horus Man has all this traffic. Now, usually you put a roundabout so you could slow the traffic
down. We don't want to slow it down. We want it to flow. Why would we put a roundabout in someplace that we want traffic to flow? because that's a lot of kids. We want that to empty out as soon as possible. So to put a traffic circle there, I don't know. Then last, it was
last meeting. My mayor said, "You should go back and listen to the meeting before so that you heard what I said." So that's what I did, Mr. Mayor. I went back and I listened to the meeting before so I could get what you said. Now, somebody threw up some ra stuff and
then somebody else countered that with, "Come on, let's give us all 67 if we do what we supposed to do." like good little kids. We're gonna give them all 67. And I calculated that and that was $300,000. And then I calculated the roundabout for $500,000.
Now, if somebody just got something for a million dollars, and then all of a sudden, boom, we going to give raises, but we want this roundabout. We don't got a lot left to fix the roads, to do the drainage, and the things that we need to do. If we're a ghetto Miami
Shores, could we fix up up here in the front, make the hedges look a little better? Since we got all this money to do all these things, like put a roundabout in a place where we don't need a roundabout, but I guess it's going to be pretty, so that's good. But why don't we make the front of the village hall pretty? Why don't the roads
on 86th Street don't go bumply bump bump bump? And I'm not talking about the speed bumps. I'm talking about the bumpity bump bump bump. Like I mean, you know, the other day I had a little Volkswagen. He was $400. you was really working my Volkswagen going down 86. I had to definitely go down 88. Could not
go down 86. No, no, no. That's not good. So, we have all these things that all these little things that we have to do. And I know my mayor said he working and he doing it little by little by little by little. But why don't we get the raise after the little by little is done? I just want to know. I'm confused.
Now, I know I know we done turned down the prices and we done said, "Hey, but what we in a rush for the raise for?" That lady said 28 years she waiting for a dream. 28 years. That's a long time to wait for a drain. You want your raise today? Come on, my boo. Let's talk about
it now. It's a little village, right? They tell me it's 4 by 12. It's a little village. 4 by 12. They said it was $3,000 because we was doing it on a volunteer basis, but we was just giving
you a little incentive. Oh, 50,000 is a whole lot of incentive. I want to be mayor anyway. But we not talking about that, y'all. Let's not, you know, let's stay on track. The mayor don't like when we off track. Let's stay on track. On track is a roundabout in a place where we
don't need a roundabout. We need a I mean, there's a lot of kids out there. their parents come to pick them up. We not closing the school. It's not getting smaller. In fact, after these people build up here, it's going to be bigger. We going
to have a roundabout. Slow traffic down. I don't know. And for $500,000. We not going to have no left of the million, y'all. All right. Thank you very much. Anyone else question or comments?
So, hi. I'm Edna, 301 Northeast 88 Street. I'm not going to be as colorful. Um, but I I really do have the same comments. Half a million dollars for a roundabout. Uh, we've been talking about fixing our roads for for as long as I've lived in Alport. Nothing's happening.
Our green spaces are are atrocious. Uh, why a roundabout? Why not cops stationed just like at at country day uh for you know for safety? I mean why and where is that half a million dollars coming from
actually? I mean are we using up the entire are we using up the entire fund that we have uh from from Miami Dade to fix the roads for this one project that it appears no one wants? Okay.
Thank you very much. Alexandra Vasa 120 Northeast Northwest 36 Street. Um I am really confused because when I see the agenda that is going to be voted today but then I see
machinery already parted. Um I am like I don't understand how the planning is working in this kind of project. You bring the machines, you bring new you hire the you know a part of it and then you're going to hire the
engineer. It's I just need some clarification. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council. Um, I'm George Alvarez. I live at 165 Northwest 88th Street. I live
down the street from Horseman. Um, it was explained to me uh by the mayor and uh the manager. Um, and it's also uh part of it's in in the original resolution, but of course it is it's
difficult to kind of put all this stuff together sometimes um that that half the funds approximately came from a grant from the state towards school safety and it was a grant that happened uh like
after the Parkland massacre uh when the state legislature uh had had uh school safety front of mind. Uh and that the other the remainder half comes from our CIT funds. Those are county funds that we are
granted by the county obviously to repair potholes, fix roads, safety issues, some other stuff. I think the mayor or the manager can can speak uh about that. Um, but
I uh sometimes you smell a rat. And I I kind of smell a rat on this one. Easy to smell because it's $552,000 and change. So like that's like a just in comparison
that's like a quarter of our tax base up until this year. Of course, if safety was an issue, why is there only two stop signs there instead of four? There's two stop signs there going east
west. If safety was an issue, there would also be two stop signs going north south to stop the traffic because safety was an issue. children. They're crossing. Well, yeah,
plenty of them do go to 91st and second. But if a Horus man safety roundabout so titled were to be about safety, wouldn't Horus man be involved?
Yes. Wouldn't it be in a spot in Horus man where the issue is is even worse if there's only going to be one roundabout if thank you Florida we get one roundabout is that money that safety money was it intended for things like roundabouts or was it attained intended
for mitigating defensive mechanisms against people kids who grabbed their parents' guns. I don't know what that was for, but I do smell that this happened really fast.
I also know that once there's a roundabout, buses are not going to be able to use that street corner. So once there's a roundabout, those days when there's a bad accident southbound
on I95 in the morning, all that traffic is going to leak down. It's going to go south on Northwest, Fourth Avenue, South on Northwest, Third Avenue. It's going to spill to 86th Street and go east down
the street, which is only one lane street. one lane each way. That is those buses won't be able to come south from 95th. So they're going to use 90th, 89th,
88th. I'll get to 87th, 87th, and possibly 86th. But the problem is on those crazy crazy traffic days when there is crazy accident on I95, people are basically
turning some of our streets into one-way streets because they're so frustrated. They just got off the highway. So I' I you know, and I I I I requested a um I did a a public information request. I I did it yesterday, though,
so a little late to the game. Um I Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be very quick. Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Mayor. So, I'd like to see what the traffic study was, what the safety study was, what's it, what is its environmental
impact? Are there going to be buses waiting on 90th, 89th, 88th, 87th, 86th idling in front of the houses who live at the corner of Northwest 2nd Avenue and all of those streets because it's already a little bit of an issue. But if
the buses have a difficult time getting down Second Avenue, this issue is going to compound. Also, regarding the last issue, somebody on the council asked, "How long is re is the great going to be how long is it
going to take to fix the uh the drain?" Well, how long is it going to do the roundabout? Like I any any you know, I've heard three different I've heard a month, I've heard three months, I've heard eight months. So, I think that this roundabout
should be better considered and should be and the public should be involved in this in a way that isn't like, all right, here's the agenda on Thursday night and we're having a meeting on Tuesday because as you can see, the word does get around eventually. I am hoping
that the resolution that was passed on the 22nd of July by this council that one of the members who voted for it will reconsider it so that we can bring it back to this council to make sure that we've got a current and specific traffic
study that's going to impact avenues, not just Second Avenue, but Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue, Northwest 1 Avenue, and eventually Miami Avenue. And let's really see if what we're really doing is we're running around
with a pair of scissors looking for a piece of paper to cut with $552,000 of granted money which maybe we can grant through other safety mechanisms or for the CITT money $252,000 and change to some potholes.
Thank you very much. Who's next for the the roundabout? Anyone else for the roundabout? This public comment. Which one of these is this public comment? Roundabout. I can't It must be this.
Okay, we're going to close public comment for the roundabout. Yes. Oh, okay. Come on up. This is Yes. Hello, Mr. Mayor. Council. Uh, my name is Ian McKenzie, 8950 Northeast 4th Avenue. Uh, I just have a question about
uh maybe I missed something because I was coming here arrived to here a little late. Um, what about speed bumps? People are worried about speeding. Uh, you know, that's a traffic calming and it's cheap. You know, concrete or some asphalt poured in a mound. It's not that
expensive. Um, maybe we can use then the money for other stuff too and get more bang for our buck. The next thing um I want to propose is to is the students of the horse man should get or the teachers or or some somebody from the council
should contact the University of Miami. We have a walk safe program which is a proven program to reduce um injuries uh for children. Uh it teaches them uh it's been measured. It's been funded by the state of Florida. It's been funded by u
the children's trust over the years. It's been uh Jillian hot I know because I worked with her in setting it up. It's a fantastic program and it teaches kids valuable sk skills and tools that they can take with them for the rest of their
lives and um they can uh use that even when they leave horse man. So uh you know we all you know talk with cell phones we get distracted all this kind of thing is really important. So um I encourage you to explore those options too and look at other alternatives and
possibly spending all this money on a traffic circle where we can even maintain that circle very nicely. Um and there's ongoing maintenance too to it as well. So thank you very much very much. Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Manuel
Marciel. I'm in 911 Northwest 1 Avenue. Uh, so I have emailed a couple of times to Miss Aloo and the uh, mayor about about speeding more more so in in uh, Northwest 1st Avenue because every times there's an accident, it's just it's just
a straight away from 91st all the way down to 87th. And um, unfortunately I've I've been out of a job since November. So I've I've been walking my dogs a lot and I walk around the block and I go through uh, horsemen as well. and
there's always a police officer there. So, um I'm just wondering of, you know, just speeding and similar to uh the previous ge gentleman's comment like why why are we not uh adding stop signs or
putting speed bumps in in these areas because there's there's a lot of speeding and our streets are extremely narrow. We have no sidewalks. I can be walking with my two dogs, my young kids, and people just fly by. I've almost been
hit at least five times uh since since November, and they don't care. They're just in a hurry to get to to their jobs and, you know, they use they use our streets as a highway. Um I don't think the issue is is there where the
roundabout is going to be. I think there's other other places that we need uh speed mitigation and and safety. Um but that corner, I mean, people will slow down. There's a cop there. If if we need more police officers, just put
another one. But we need to think about other other areas where uh when traffic is involved and they use our streets as as back streets and and just speedways. That's where I think uh we should be focusing on.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi. Hi, Mayor. Hi. Uh, my name is Tamara Hendershot. I live at 105 Northeast 86. I I didn't know anything until last meeting about the man roundabout.
Thanks. Thanks. Um, so I started to do a little research online and it turns out the village had started that project uh four years ago in 2021. Um, they got $300,000 from the state of
Florida. That was the initial amount of money and they petitioned with Miami Shores to go along with it. and Miami Shores has no interest in it. Also, it even states in the record that this was
meant to be for safety at Horus Man, although there's no indication that Horus Man School ever was interested in a roundabout or any additional safety in that area. So, I kind of don't
understand how it came to be when it doesn't seem like anyone needed it or wanted it or cared about it. I mean, what what is the issue? And why is it so suddenly when it started in 2021
and rambled along for four years, it's suddenly being done without us even knowing about it within a week? So, it there is a rat. I think there's two rats there. There's more than one. I just don't understand any of it. That makes
no sense whatsoever. It should be used. I I asked the mayor a two years ago. We got two speed bumps. Two years ago, I requested I sent the mayor approximately once a month, once every three weeks, a
dead a photograph of a dead animal on the streets. Finally, 86th Street got two two speed bumps and he promised we were the first. And shortly thereafter, this is a year ago, there were 58 more that were going to be put down in the
village. Has anybody seen them? Didn't think so. Who's next? Augustine Ramos, 60 Northwest 91st Street. Um, I have uh over the past year I've communicated with the mayor about
speeding on 91st. Manny's neighbor speaking, uh, next door neighbor. Um, sent a lot of videos of people doing so. Uh the suggestion of a speed bump was one that I had made and the explanation was that
91st is uh something about the county being managed and it's a through road and divides Miami Shores and North and Elportal which is true. Um but I did not know that the county was allocating money for this roundabout which a
roundabout presumably county dollars are involved. The county opined on the speed mitigation measure on the corner of this 91st street and a roundabout's bigger and more costly than some speed bumps. So, I'm curious as to why if the funds
can be used for a large roundabout in one spot, why couldn't those funds be used for multiple speed bumps in various spots or stop signs or anything cheaper, smaller uh quicker than uh a roundabout
on the same street that the county must opine on which and that's the reason why we haven't gotten something else. So, just clarification there, please. Thank you very much. Sorry. Sorry. I' I've been getting messages
from people in the audience and so on. All right. So, just let's just talk about and this is null pace 206 Northwest 91st Street. Again, my property is uh affected by this project. Just so we're straight procedurally, this project hasn't been approved yet by the council. That's what this resolution
is being voted on to do. So, but it already started work today. So, I think that's what the confusion in the audience is. That being said, I I do agree. Like I said, I think that there just needs to be more due diligence put into the project. We need to see renderings of
what the area will look like. Obviously, you know, safety is always probably the top concern of local government. And so, hey, this is a safetyoriented project. I can tell you being a resident there that Northwest
2nd Avenue, uh, cars go flying down that street, uh, at all hours of the day and night. School zone signs, flashing lights, police officers. It's it a lot of times doesn't matter. So, something has to be done to mitigate the traffic.
Now, I do know that two years ago, there was a meeting with where this project was proposed to Miami Shores. I believe another resident said they really weren't interested in it. I mean, in the end, you know, I think we need to start asking the rhetorical question, why do we have so much traffic in Elportal?
It's because Miami Shores streets are closed. When are we going to start demanding some compensation from Miami Shores for that? If we were doing a combined project with them, I think somebody needs to ask that question up here on the council, right? I mean, our our streets age faster. The asphalt needs to
be replaced. there's second and third order effects in terms of the amount of money that we're talking about here. So, Miami Shore seems to have a pretty good tax base. I think it's time to start looking uh in their direction. You know, I don't know if it's if it's a uh a
trade of, you know, we get access to their uh recreational facilities. Something needs to be done for Elortal. Now, that being said, I do think that something needs to be done. I'm not sure if a roundabout is is the right solution. I think it's up to a traffic
engineer to determine that. I would like to see renderings of all this. I just think that this seems to be again it was a project from really I guess four years ago. It was proposed two years ago. There were some meetings and then it was it was like dead silence for two years
and then all of a sudden we're having a meeting on the day after the project already started where they delivered heavy equipment and so on. So, let's just take let's just take some prudent time to to reook this. That's that's all that's all I recommend. Thank you. Thank
you very much. Hi. Can you guys hear me? My name is Velvet Connelly. I live at Hi. I live at 355 Northeast 87th Street. And I've been a resident of Alports Hall for five years. So, not like many of you, I
haven't lived here that long. But I remember when I first moved here, I used to come to these meetings because I was really excited to live here. It was my first house. And I was the only one here. I was the only person and it would just be the council. And I I was really
excited to just be involved and hear what they were doing. But to be honest, I got really frustrated with the meetings because it would just be a lot of talking about problems and not a lot of solutions and I got discouraged by that. And so I stopped coming and when I
saw this meeting come up, I said, "Okay, let me see what's going on." And I just want to say that as I've sat here today and when I came at the last meeting afterwards, I wasn't at the meeting, but I saw people outside and I'm just really impressed with this entire community and
the panel that we have, right? There's so much potential. There's so much human capital. You guys are intelligent, resourceful, and even like, you know, the council that we have, they have a lot of knowledge and a lot of wisdom. And what I just see and again I'm not I
don't have solutions but I do see that we have a lot of problems as our village and I just feel like I'd like to make a clarion call for a new approach that we just are approaching things a little differently through innovation. Just because things normally are expensive
and take a long time it doesn't mean it has to be that way. I feel like we can add innovation. We are a small village. I know in some worlds small is a disadvantage, but I'm an entrepreneur. In my world, small is an advantage. Small is mighty. Small can move with
speed. Small means precision, right? So, there's things that are possible when something is small that are not possible when something is really big and heavy, right? And so, as a small village, we have an opportunity to work together in a way that big villages don't. we have
an opportunity to come up with innovative projects in the way that we do things, right? We can add innovation to some of our, you know, whatever where we're like, hey, what's the best way to solve this problem? We could do a pilot project, right? We could be a marquee village that's doing things that nobody
else is doing and testing and seeing, hey, how does that work, right, where bigger counties can't do that or bigger areas. And so I'm not saying I I don't have the solution obviously to the roundabout. It doesn't sound like that's the greatest idea for a growing village.
It sounds like that's not having a vision for where we're going. That we are growing, right? But it does sound like the answer is in the room. That's what I hear. I hear the answer is in the room. And I just wonder if we become more collaborative and open ourselves to
being innovative in how we approach things, if we could come up with solutions that solve a lot of problems in our village, including this one, with speed, with precision, and with less money. And I wonder if you guys committed to having that mentality and
you did it, if everybody here wouldn't be like, give them a raise, right? I just think it could work like that. Anyone else? Public comment. Roundabout. Public comment. Roundabout.
All right. going once. We're good. Public comment roundabout. We're good. Okay. All right. Bringing it back to the council before I go through this. Any um questions or comments from the council? Yeah. Just want to make a quick comment.
So, I am going to defend the roundabout for just a moment. Okay. So, this has been in discussion for several years. The larger discussion surrounding specifically that street is a 24-hour a
day issue. I will say I will say that uh on the council we have not seen renderings of what the roundabout is going to look like. The discussion mostly has been around the
need for traffic control, the willingness of the county to allow us to do something, and then additionally the grant that allowed us basically to get over the finish line in terms of funding plus
coordination with Miami Shores. Um so uh I will say after defending the roundabout because I have sat through all the meetings concerning the roundabout and uh and
even so I will say this. I knew the moment the proposal came up for the raises for the council that every single agenda item we hope to get done between now and forever was at risk.
Personally and tell this situation with the raise is resolved. I can already see that on this issue which by the way many residents do want this roundabout. Many residents have
gotten up. Excuse me. Excuse me, guys. Listen. I would caution everybody on cheering up or down on anything anybody says because there are a bunch of individuals in this room. I am one of them. I have said for years I am a proud
independent. I am nonparty affiliated in this state so that I can say whatever I want whenever I want. I answer to no one. Okay, we have had residents in here begging for traffic control on Northwest 2nd, on
Miami Avenue, on Northeast 2nd, on 87th. Okay, so this was a viable solution. I do not know where we sit right now because of what happened with the
insane proposal of raises to this council. Okay. So, because of an insane proposal of raises to this council, everything we're doing looks insane right now. Okay. So, I want you to know that I
recognize that almost nobody in this room truly understands the history of this roundabout. I acknowledge that not even the council knows what it's going to look like when it's done. All right. I acknowledge that openly. All right.
And so I am worried, disappointed, frustrated and concerned over the It is wonderful to see everybody here,
but the young lady is correct. In most meetings, there's one, two, three, and it's usually the same people. Okay, so that would be great. That would be great. And if any of you have ever heard me speak before, you know that my goal for this village is that two people run
for every single seat on this council every single cycle. I'm on my fourth term. I ran opposed my first term. I've been unopposed for three terms. So my personal goal for this village is
that every single seat is contested every single cycle. Now, am I going to get my wish? I don't usually get my wish. All right? I'm a progressive. So, uh, so I will just say that I already knew when the proposal came
across the microphone a couple meetings ago for an insane raise for this council, I knew that every single agenda item we were hoping to get done was at risk. I don't know how I'm going to vote tonight. What I do know is that a whole lot of work and a whole lot of effort
and a massive amount of coordination went in to getting this roundabout to a reality at the corner that it's at is a good spot for it. If the buses can get through, I agree.
All right. And I will say this, the comment about the 58 speed bumps, that comment has never been uttered at a at an at a public meeting. I've never heard it. The discussion of the two speed bumps took a while and we that was
an effort because we're dealing with the county. We did three traffic studies, I believe, to accomplish a lower speed limit with the county and go toe-to-toe with the county over many of our traffic calming needs, which are still in progress. So,
I just want to give some background on that and say that outside of extenduating circumstances, uh, I would be supporting this project. I do have a comment. First of all, I want to tell everybody in the room, thank you so much for coming. I
appreciate seeing all of your faces and when you get on this mic and you let us know when you let me know, I can only speak for myself. When you let me know how you feel, I really take it into account. Um, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn from your lived experience and the way you view the
world because it helps me make a more sound decision when I sit here um, looking through these documents. I too share Councilman Urban's sentiments. I feared that the proposal would put us in the position where everything that uh we
do or propose on this body would be looked at with a tinge of skepticism. Um looking for the proverbial hook as to what is the the benefit to us personally. I feared that which is why I voted no. Councilman Urban voted no as
well. And I understand it. I I understand why your antennas are up and everything looks like there's a rat somewhere. Um, but I do think a way to combat that is with information. So, if you're open to receiving the information, I will give you the
information. Um, as truthfully as I know it to be. Um, I pride myself on that and that's what I want to do tonight. And more so than me giving you the information, I say that you should probably get it from someone who's been doing a tremendous amount of work on
this. Um, so I want to touch on the funding of this project and I also want to touch on the um the need for it. Uh, Councilman Urb is correct before we had this issue with the payraises, a a very
large issue that we had was with safety. I live on the northwest side on the other side of Horus man and I have two small boys five and six. I've been walking them through these Elportal streets since they were in strollers and I can attest personally that there have been numerous incidents where my husband
and I have seen cars flying by and we've been like oh my god that is so very scary and so dangerous. We've heard that sentiment echoed by a lot of our neighbors. Um but my experience is anecdotal. Sitting here on this deis, we've had tons of people come in and ask
us for solutions. Um solutions seem really easy on our level. It's we're Elportal. Why not just throw up these these um speed bumps? Sometimes it's not so easy, right? Because it's not just some of those roads aren't only under our control. We need to get to someone
in the county for the roundabout. We needed to get someone in Miami Shore. So sometimes it's more collaborative and it's hard to get some uh buyin sometimes when you are a smaller municipality. Uh so there has been a lot of calling out
and saying hey this is an issue. In addition to that I cheered the planning and zoning committee for I think the past two years. I've only recently given it up but in that planning and zoning committee we work with plusurbia and they are really good at what they do.
They are engineers. It is not just our idea of like where should we put this roundabout. They are trained at doing this. They have degrees. We had a n number of meetings um that I was present at where residents would sit and talk
about what their issues were. Speeding was one. Placerbia highlighted this as a viable option with the intentions of in the future there being an internal drop off situation with Horus man. So that
large parking lot that remains empty. The thought was that instead of parents and buses dropping off students on the perimeter there would be an internal option that we're working on. So in in a perfect world all of this would happen
at the same time and we would just see it done. But in this it is more of a concurrent movement. The roundabout comes first. Internal dropoff situation. There is a master streets plan that you can look at that proposes making a lot
of those streets one-way streets as a deterrent to people using those streets as um cutth through streets for them whenever it's clogged on 95 or clogged on Biscane. It is something that we've
looked at, something that we've put a lot of thought in, and this is the concurrent movement that we've decided that ultimately we hope provides a permanent traffic solution back there. And also, I think more importantly, the
reason why we've moved this forward without the aesthetics is because at the core, we think it's about safety. something is going to happen and I personally do not want that on my account. So if I can put a traffic
calming measure there and it deters something from happening I would prefer to do that than to not have done it and then say oh my gosh uh what a tragedy. So this is the thought behind it. The streets master plan is available on our
website. I do believe everyone should take a look at it and also continue to opine on how what you think about it. I think it's a great document. We have these unique diverters that we're going to hopefully bring to Elportal in addition to the roundabout. The young
lady in the pink, I forgot your name, but your comment was so spot-on as to what we can do if we work collaboratively. Some of those elements in that plan are elements that you see in different European cities and we have brought it here. The directional
diverters are one of them. I would love for everybody to look at it. We worked super hard on it and I think it's a a really good document. Um, but I understand why coming for me after what we did. It's kind of hard to swallow. But take a look at the actual document.
Take a look at the work. Take a look at what we've done. And it it this isn't something that was just done overnight. Um and it is not something that is born out of self-interest. We really think that there is and we've heard not just
think we've really heard that there is a speeding issue. I've experienced it personally. We think this is a long-term solution to it if we take these steps. Roundabout first internal drop off for students at Horus man. In addition to
that, eventually making some of those roads one way and less desirable for persons who would like to use it as a way to get through to Biscane or to 95. But I do want the manager because I think she is uh well informed on the
topic to talk to us about the funding and how this is getting paid for. If you don't mind sharing. No, not at all. I don't mind sharing. Um, in 2021, this appropriation was granted to the
village after, um, the former mayor, um, Mrs. Kubio and I, uh, went to Tallahassee and lobbyed and with our legislators and talked about bringing some, um, safety to the roads of Elortell um, and also some improvements
to the village hall. This, this, um, request was made year after year. We didn't get it until 2021 when we got the funding. Um, we continued to work on this project. I know four years seems like a lot. Believe me, it has uh it has
been too much time, but we've put a lot of time into that. So, it's funded with $300,000 um from the state of Florida from FDOT managing this. I've been in meetings um bi-weekly with our engineer uh and also with Craig A. Smith uh engineering. Um
the grant is a matching grant and the village has to put up this the remaining um $300,000. Um we will be using um county funds from our CIT. Also part of the weight what has taken so long is that we had to get
permits and and um go through Miami date county traffic engineering and they've approved it. So we have all of that finally after uh waiting for over a year for for those things. Uh back in 2022, we went to um Miami Shores Village, uh
Mayor Nickerson and I and um they approved it and we're very excited about the project because their residents on that side are also complaining about the the speeding that goes through. Um our former police chief um David Magnus also did um some details over there to check
for speeding and we made those reports to the state of Florida just looking for opportunities where we could find anything that could deter. this is what they funded. It won't be speed bumps. It was a speed or a circular. So, we are working on that. We hope that uh it will
be a um a good project for all of the residents. Um some people have come to us very happy with that and it will take uh 90 days because we're on a time schedule through um Florida Department of Transportation that requires it. um we have a deadline so we we are going to
stay on top of that and today's item isn't to approve the project because the project was approved back in 2021 by this council in July but um what is being requested today is just the engineering service exceeds our current engineers or our public works director's
services that's all thank you so much for for sharing that and just my final point so we talked about just the realities of of where the funds are coming from. Uh the the second part was is this really an issue? Does anyone care about it? Um at least I
expressed why I do think it is an issue and and and persons care about it. I also expressed to you what I think this is the impetus for. This is the first step in like executing that multi-level plan that's it's beautiful and it's enumerated on our website. Um, it's not
a plan to change everything to one-way streets in the next year or two years, but in order for you to know how you want to grow and what you want your village to look like, you do have to have a more um aggressive and ambitious plan. And this is our aggressive and
ambitious plan as it relates to controlling the traffic in our streets, making it safer, making it more pedestrian friendly, and I think really enhancing the aesthetic as well. and with the enhancement of aesthetics, you're going to have the improvement of property values, all of those things. I think the plan is a winner. Would love
your input on it. Um because also things aren't set in stone, right? As you said in the beginning, there are a lot of you with a lot of different expertise. I'm not an engineer. I'm a lawyer. um I know how to understand things, but I also
really really would love for the people that live here and have skin in the game to give me your perspective so that I can understand where you're coming from and can incorporate that experience in there. The third thing that I want to talk about before I end um the other rat
that someone said they smell is uh would horse man why wouldn't horse man be involved? Um, Horus Man is actually I went to middle school there, so I love Horus Man and I had some great experiences there, especially in band. Um, I still know how to play the flute
today. Uh, but I I will say sometimes it's very hard to get the administration on board because they're doing lots of things. I know I've had the experience of coming to Horus man and their administration with numerous proposals.
Um, and honestly, I think that with the state of everything in education, they they don't have the bandwidth sometimes to be as visible, um, or as present as as as I would like them to be. So, it's
something that they're aware of, uh, for sure. But as far as being in the room, um I don't I don't know if we have like a representative that could come and you know just so that everyone can see and be certain that it's not something that
Elportal is either kind of doing in the cover of night um or doing against anyone's will. uh Miami Shores, Worst Man, Miami Day County, um they're all aware of the project and if you want to be aware of what it is that this might be the impetus for the the lynch pin in
uh you can definitely go on the website and poke around for a little bit as well. Um and those are my comments. Thank you very much, Madam Vice Mayor. Anybody else from the council? Yes, council person. Ditto. My counterpart has just said
Ditto. I agree. I'm not that far. She's not that far. I've watched the need for safety. Those of you that know where this is, raise your hand.
Thank you. You've seen it, too. It's not It's not pretty. I almost got hit. I'm in my car. They're just spinning right straight through it because they're trying to get the children to school. They're speeding right straight through
it. I almost had an accident. Surely most of us have seen people that don't live here but their children go to Horseman. That frightened me a lot. And I'm not
I'm not a I don't get frightened. But when someone is speeding, coming through going to the horse man, what is it gonna do? The building gonna run away. If I experience that, then that's why I'm voting for this because it gets
very dangerous in the morning time. I don't know which way you all go, but I'm retired and when I see what I see early in the morning, especially when it happened to me. Oh, I'm voting for this because there's no reason
keeps turning off my There's no reason at all for El Patel not to have noticed that this becomes a real runaway street in the morning. Not so much in the
afternoon, but in the morning. I don't know why this thing keeps going. All things considered. Thank you all for coming because I needed to hear you all say things also. I don't know why he's doing it,
but it's it's it's very important. It extremely important. If you haven't ever seen it, I almost I drive the car. I drive my car. If you have never seen it, you won't know how dare just because they don't live here, they come through
our village like this trying to get the horse man. I rest my case. Council person or anybody else from the council? Yes, sir. This was a beautiful response. I love you all. This was wonderful. You did
exactly what we wanted to happen. We wanted the rest of our residents to be involved in the city. My council members next to me said that they feared what would happen when they'd asked for a pay raise. That people would show up here and question everything they did. But that's what you need to do.
Thomas Jefferson said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is freedom." Decorum, please. Decorum Thomas Jefferson said when the people fear their government there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people there is freedom. The people should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people. And what you have done here today where you came in and you spoke up is what we want to happen. We want to see the community involved and speaking up every single time we have something
going on. This being said, there was a lot that I heard today from the residents that makes a lot of sense. This includes the fact that we are starting this roundabout the first week of school. Now, I understand it's a five-month
project, but it would have made sense to do some of this project during the summer even though it won't go into the school year. Is there a reason why that we chose this timing? Um, yeah, we I agree with you. We would have loved to have done this during the summer months, but we didn't have the
permits yet through the county. When the moment we got the permits, we put the item on the agenda or I'm sorry, I had to do an RFP to select the construction company. That takes at least 30 days. So, I did the RFP. Um, and the moment we made the selection, we brought it to
council. So, unfortunately, I believe me, I'm a parent as well. I know how horrible of timing this is, but we're also at the end of our extensions for the project. So, we're we of course do it, we lose it. And and also the school is aware, they've been uh aware throughout the
project pro process and you know, they I understand their concerns and we'll have extra police in the area to assist with drop off and pickup. Thank you. And another thing that a citizen said here was that about um different traffic studies that might
have been done. I was reading through uh one of the traffic studies here by David Plameumber and um on Northwest Second in front of the school. It showed that out of 118 1,08 drivers uh only 10 of them
were speeding because this would be according to if anything is above 10 miles 10% of the speed limit they don't pull them over. So um I understand the residents understanding and and fear for the actual speeding but is there any
other um viable documents that show the need for this roundabout? I don't besides the approval from Florida Department of Transportation and the you know outcry of the community in the area
but those uh we did a I don't know if I have that but I can certainly look for whatever um former Chief Magnus did when he did the detail of clocking that time. understand sometimes those um um traffic studies they're done well depending on
the timing it shows um what's happening depending on the days but um the recommendation was still to slow the traffic down and it was also to reduce the speed limit. We did a a holistic approach to reducing speeding in the
village. One was the um reduction of the speed limit, the installation of the roundabout, which was always a part of this plan, and we also plan to do a road diet on Northeast 2nd Avenue. All of those things are still in the works. It just takes so much time due to
permitting and due to getting the approvals of various CA uh state and county entities. So, that's where we're at. And so, these were approved because they also did their studies. And so I will look into seeing if there are some other things that um we can produce for you. Well, when we did our research for the
speed bumps a few months back, we found that roundabouts were more effective than speed bumps, but they were more expensive. Um will there be other future roundabouts that the citizens should know about? Not that I'm aware of yet. You know,
again, everything is contingent upon funding. We received that funding in 2021. uh we would have to go again to ask for further assistance um from the state. Um but um we're always looking for opportunities. So I don't know, but for now nothing's on the horizon to
further that except for whatever we can do on our own. Thank you. At least we have a a match on this one where we aren't paying for the entire thing. So all right, that'll be all. Any other questions or comments from the council? Yeah, I just want to add just a little bit of uh background, too. So three
different traffic studies were done. Um the ultimate goal of all three of the studies was to provide enough data to the county to uh get them to allow us to lower speed limits. Um when the first uh reports came out, I remember at that meeting it was interesting because there
weren't that many speeders in the data. And my comment at that time was it's clear that we don't really have a speeding problem in Elportal, we have a speed limit problem in Elportal. So, um, so, uh, you know, Council Person Winter is not wrong in terms of looking at that
data and saying, "Well, there's not that many speeders, but there is still just because there it's more of a speed limit issue." And so now that we have a lower speed limit, uh I mean that that was a it took a very long time through a
couple different administrations, through massive effort on the manager's part uh to not back down from the county who was just dismissing us out of hand year after year. And um and it took a
quite an effort to get those three traffic studies done with the specific goal of lowering the speed limits so that then it kind of uh uh unplugged the drain so we could start moving forward like getting the two speed bumps into 86
um other speed bumps uh as well. And on the speed bump issue, things are moving forward. And um I'll just openly tell you guys that I am one of the most aggressive drivers in the county. Okay? That's a personal problem that I've been working through my whole life. All
right? But I am absolutely one of the single most aggressive drivers in this county. All right? I will blow your doors off. So I've calmed down over the years. I've been in the county 23 years. All right? Um, and I will tell you that
speed bumps, uh, speed bumps mostly affect the drivers who are doing what they're supposed to be doing and affect very little, uh, the drivers who are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. I can see a speed bump from two blocks away and calculate what my harmonic
speed is for my car and match it. Park, park, drive here, 40 miles an hour. It's easier on my vehicle to hit that speed bump at 40 than it is to slow down for it. So, do I slow down for it? I do.
Okay. I do. It hurts to slow down for it because I know I'm just tearing up my brakes. I'm going to be dumping gas on the other side. Okay. So, for me, you guys might see me weaving in and out of traffic, but my speed is constant. Okay? I'm an efficiency junkie. So, I like my
miles per gallon. I calculate my mileage. I've calculated my mileage for 30 years. I fill it up, it clicks, I look at the odometer, I calculate my own fuel economy. Okay, so with speed bumps, they are not a miracle answer. I just want to say that the manager and I have talked about this extensively because
there are speed bumps that do work. The ones in Miami Shores seem to be effective. The wide ones, uh, they do seem to be effective. Um uh but like the little ones like this and we can have I've had this conversation with you. So
now I now I've confessed to you uh my egregious behavior behind the wheel, but what are we going to do about the other 300,000 drivers that think they're the most aggressive driver in Miami Dade County or trying to take the title from me? Okay. So So we've had one conversation with one person, but what are we going to do about the other
300,000? All right. So, uh, that's the point of of my comments is that, uh, is that you might occasionally come across someone like myself who's open about it. Uh, but the truth is, uh, that's not going to do anything about the other 300,000 drivers that that, uh, drive
just as badly as I do. Okay. So, um, so this has been a discussion for years and years and years over over what we can do fighting with the county. And I mean fighting with the county. So, so that's where we are. Counb. Um any other questions, comments
from the council? Okay, hearing none. Um it was brought up about the renderings, uh also the traffic study, safety study, environmental impact. Um we'll try to get those for you guys, Mr. Pace, uh Mr.
Alvarez. Um I also think that uh there's probably a a meeting like a Zoom meeting or something that we should have to address the other issues, the wall, the entrance, and those type of things. proper funding as far as the um the Miami Shores situation, the streets
being closed. You guys are absolutely correct about that. Um, about a year and a half ago or a couple years ago, I was in discussion with the Miami Shores, three years ago, I was in discussion with the Miami Shores Council about um,
not because of the closing of the streets, but just about becoming closer together as the three villages, the tribe village of Miami Shores, Biscane Park, and Alberta, and uh, looking into us getting rights to be more inclusive with uh, you you know what they do over
there, especially their water park. Um, that night that that occurred, you had uh two individuals that supported what I was saying, but you had three at that particular time that didn't support what I was saying. I went to that Miami
Shores meeting. Okay. Um, since then they they then got a new uh mayor after that who was Vietname against it. Um, the mayor before their most previous mayor,
she was for it. That mayor was for it and one of the other council members at the time, I believe it was the vice mayor was for it, but the other three weren't. Um the mayor after that was Vietnam against it and so was shut down. They now have a new mayor that they got
recently over there in Miami Shores. Um so and I've I've spoke to him a couple of times but we never had an official meeting and I I could open that discussion back up. Okay. As far as the um traffic circle traffic
flow, this was uh Mr. Denise in the last meeting that we had well in the meeting that we had the last council meeting that we had uh in July 22nd I uh what I said the last meeting with the reason why I said go look at the last meeting was because individuals
were saying what's being done for infrastructure projects what's being done for road repair what's being done for these things what's being done for tree trimming and in the last meeting what I did say was go back and look at that last the meeting but previous and
in that meeting, if you went back and looked at that meeting on you have on um resolution F6 from the July 22nd meeting, if you saw that meeting, it was $700,000
that was moved into the general fund for street and road repair, road safety, and street safety, tree trimming, tree planting, maintenance, and those type of things. That's the reason why I said if you saw that meeting on on July 22nd, I I said specifically where the funding
was and how much of that funding that I moved into the general fund for those specific purposes. Okay, that's why I said go look at the last meeting. Um where's the money come from the roundabout come from? Manager Lou already explained that. Um why is it So
there was two portions. manager Lou explained how when we first passed it in 2021, but in July 22nd, there was the construction portion. Tonight is the engineer engineering portion. So that explains that. Um, as far as grant money, so I think a
lot of people because I heard a lot of different comments and it wasn't just this individual now that I'm to his question, but it was a few after this and they were kind of saying like, well, you know, why don't we just use this grant money for things like other things other than the traffic circle, things
that we may seem that's better than the traffic circle. But you guys, when you're talking about government procurement, whether you're talking about federal money or state money or county money, it's allocated to a specific job. You can't take that money
and say, "Oh, we just decided not to do the the roundabout. Let's just do uh stop signs or something like that." So, it's allocated for that specific job. Now, if we didn't get the money for that specific job, then we just wouldn't have the money for that specific job. Now, if you don't want the not you, but I'm saying if we don't want the job to
happen, then we just give the money back. But they're not going to say, "We'll take that money and do us do something else with it." All right. So, let's understand that. Um, yeah. So, Mr. Marcel, uh, speeding on on 91st has been
a real big issue. Mr. Ramos also came up later and, uh, you know, he's correct. He spoke to me about it uh, numerous times. Um, we've reached out to Miami Shores, but we haven't done an official meeting about it. Um, we've reached out to them, spoke spoke to them kind of
like offline about it because 91st is shared with Miami Shores. So, anything that we do, we have to have them on board for anything that we do on 91st. Now, 91st unfortunately can't have speed humps, speed bumps. It can't have it because 91st they consider
a through street. 91st, 87th Street, Northeast 2nd Avenue, North Miami Avenue. They look at those as through streets. So, we can't do it on those streets. Um whether we got permission or not. There's also, and I don't know where the number 58 in that came from.
Um I never gave a direct number, but I did say we're doing speed humps um villagewide. All right. And some of people, most of you guys probably got this that I have put out the speed humps villagewide flyer. Okay, that says that
we're doing speed humps villagewide. All right, and there's a there's a lot behind that. If you want to know the the intergovernmental details of the state and how that happened and the county and things like that, um, reach out to me
and we'll uh we'll schedule a meeting and I can give you all those intimate details of that. Uh, yeah. So, Miss Connley, I appreciate you. And so, you know, what we try to do here is we
try to find solutions for things. I think a lot of times what happens is that um you know, I think I think some of it is the information that gets out. I think a lot of times the people that put the information out, which this is
just life, right? they put it out skewed towards what they want you to feel and they'll leave out like details of the full picture, you know, like so so a lot of you guys who show up and it's like, you know, well, what's going on? Why don't you guys have money for, you know,
any other street repair or why don't you guys have money going into street safety? Where the same meeting, the exact same meeting, January 22nd that started the whole thing about the council pay, I mean the council pay resolution
for this July 22nd meeting. The council pay resolution is F5 and F6 is the $700,000 that I moved into the general fund for street repair, street safety, road repair, and those
type of things. It's the very next item, but they only focused on F5. They didn't even mention the F6. So, I think a lot of times, you know, it's there and you guys can always reach out to me. You know, I'm accessible. You
know, that's my real cell phone number that's on my card that everybody, if you reach out to me, everybody who's reached out to me, they'll tell you, text me, call me day, night, doesn't matter what time. And I'll tell you exactly what's going on. I'll tell you how we got there. I'll tell you why I'm for it or
against it. I'll tell you everything. And let me tell you, there's a lot of individuals and people who have reached out to me, they'll know this. There's a lot of individuals who are opposed to my position on things. I still help you out.
Like I still help I give you the information. I help you with all the details, right? Even to come here and argue against me. So I give you everything. Just reach out to me. I give you everything. Okay. Um, I think the other questions were I was going through them were answered by
either village manager or up here. Um, and I think I answered everybody else's question when it comes to that. Were there any final comments or questions from the council? I move that we You move. Um, I have a motion by council
person Ward. Do I have a second? Could you clarify the motion for me, please? The motion is just to approve the uh E2 the roundabout. Perfect. I'll second for the engineering services. Second by Vice Mayor Martin. Madam clerk, may I please have a roll call?
Roll call. Council person Winters. Yes. Council person Lifewood Ward. Yes. Council person bomb. No. I'm sorry. No. Vice Mayor Martin? Yes. Mayor Nickerson? Yes. Motion passes four to one. Thank you very much. Moving on to E3.
Okay. So, um, the attorney before we before the meeting started, you guys saw me talking to the attorney, we kind of started kind of late or whatever. So, this is basically so I'm going to give a gist of what happened and I'm going to let you kind of go through it. So, originally on
J on July 22nd when I brought up the original um council pay situation during that when I brought that up um for that resolution during that council person winters then he changed it and
adjusted it and took it up to a higher level. Okay. Once that was passed through it was passed through. Now, last meeting, the last special meeting that we had, this was last week at the that was the meeting for the
millillage ray and to start the budget season. Okay, that was it was one agenda item. At that meeting, at the end of the meeting, there was a motion made to reconsider the vote from the 22nd. All right. That
council person Winters had amended and for that. Okay. And I I'm not gonna say I told you so. It's okay. But I'm just saying for government procedure you guys like and I and I said at the time you know
like we have to be careful about you know getting caught up in in an emotional moment and getting out of government procedure because what can happen then is yes today you might say you know you know let's let's not follow the rules and
let's just have this come back but then a year from now two years from now three years from Now, there might be somebody else that brings up something you're against and they'll use that as a precedent to then push something through real quick that's not even on the
agenda. So, our last special meeting that was about the millage rate and about the budget that a lot of you were at, that was the one agenda item. To have a motion to reconsider, you have to at least have the item
listed on the agenda. So what we basically did in the last meeting was we said well it's not on the agenda but then at the very end of the meeting even though it wasn't on the agenda and it wasn't even added during the approval of the agenda
but then at the end of the meeting we made a motion to resend a resolution and I felt like at that time that was dangerous and I said that in that meeting I said you guys I just I just don't feel right about this because the procedure because what if you know two years from now you you know there's a
there's a council member or somebody that's crazy and there's a meeting that happens and it's not on the agenda and right before the meeting ends they say I want to make a motion to raise taxes or something like that and they say well
two years ago there was something that's not on the agenda and we did a whole motion so the the um somebody brought it up to the attorney the attorney came to me right before the meeting and then said look mayor like what happened last meeting.
This is how you can you guys can clean it up real quick. I said, "Okay." I said, "So, explain to me." So, Mr. Attorney, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, one of two options are available. One is to either have one of the three yes votes from the the last uh actual noticed meeting, move
for reconsideration. If that motion is seconded uh and then uh voted on successfully then the items that were on the table from the last council meeting can be reconsidered.
Now the other way is to simply is to simply uh vote on the resolution. I don't mean to interrupt I don't but point of order here that is exactly what happened at the last meeting. Yeah, but well the pro the problem is that reconsideration can only happen at the
next noticed special meeting or the next regular meeting. So that particular item wasn't properly noticed on the last meeting. So it's a legal nully at that point. So tonight we have municipal pay, municipal council pay on the agenda. So now we can do it because it's noticed
that municipal pay will be discussed tonight. Even though this is not the the next meeting, it's a special meeting that was properly noticed uh with that particular uh subject matter on the agenda because I believe the way it was done at the last meeting was out of a concern
that there was a threat that if it didn't happen at the last meeting, then the opportunity was lost forever. No, no, that's not that's not the case. Very good. Thank you for the clarification. Sorry to interrupt. No worries. All right. So with that being said, um I'll make the most
I interrupted him before he got to option two. Well, the option two is simply to consider the uh resolution E3 uh which is on the agenda today which adjust the uh municipal pay and of course during
discussion um you know folks can move to amend or adjust that. behoove us all to just mention right now what the numbers of this agenda item are for everybody's benefit. I have another interruption when you when you have a minute. Yeah. Well, well, let's let's do this
like the clean way. So, I want to first do the reconsider that we essentially did last meeting, but now we're doing it in the proper meeting. All right. So, first do the reconsider. Okay. Um, do I have a motion
to reconsider the resolution that was passed on July 22nd? What is it? So, the re the the motion that passed on July 22nd, the resolution was the amended resolution from Council Person
Winters that led it to $67,000. Okay. What is 67,000? Let's Let's Let's do it right. You know what it is cuz I'm reading the paper. But we got to do it right. What are we trying to get to? Council person light forward. We're
doing it right. I'm looking for a motion to reconsider that particular resolution that was passed for 67,000 on July 22nd. Do I have a motion to reconsider that resolution to take it away? To reconsider it?
Mr. Mr. Mayor, if you can give me a moment. I'm I'm trying to locate the uh actual resolution just in case the council would like it read verbatim. I can find it for you. I got you. I also first of all, Mr. Attorney, thank you so much for a clear and concise response on something and a seemingly
very good handle on the procedure. We we don't usually have that. So, it's super refreshing to have it. I have a fundamental question though. In our charter, it says uh verbatim section 206 says, "Council person shall receive annual compensation in an amount
prescribed by ordinance." So, can we do this by resolution? So, you can pass this resolution. However, you're correct. Pursuant to section 2.06, uh the uh compensation has to be prescribed by ordinance. The way that that typically happens is the resolution
will include uh a another order to allow either the city manager or the city attorney to do whatever is necessary to affffectuate that which in this case would be to draft an ordinance ultimately for the council's approval. Perfect. Thank you so much.
All right. So, let me let me get to that real quick, Madam Vice Mayor, and then we'll I'll ask for the motion again to reconsider the motion that was passed. All right. One more point of order. So the motion made by council person lifeward at the last meeting to rescend
the item from the previous meeting is Nolan void. Is that what we're saying? Correct. So, one of the three either the mayor, council person Winters, or council person life Ward, one of those three need to basically would need to
make the same motion again tonight to essentially accomplish the same they can well to put not necessarily the same outcome, but to put it differently, they would have to move to reconsider that particular item to then discuss and
ultimately vote. on that item again. Thank you. Let's do the motion first. Do I have a motion to reconsider? I reconsider reconsidering again. Let's be Let's speak here. Let's be real clear. What are we What are we reconsidering?
Which one of these? We're reconsidering the resolution that was passed on July 22nd that Council Person Winters did the amendment for for the 67,000. We're reconsidering that that that resolution. Do I have a motion to
reconsider? I make a motion to reconsider. Thank you very much, Council President Winters. Do I have a second? Council person life for a Ward. Anyone can second. No. Let me get Do I have a second from Council Person Light for Ward? Second.
Thank you very much. I have a motion. I have a second. Motion to reconsider. Madam Clerk, may I please have roll call, please? Roll call. Council Person Winters, yes. Council person Lifewood Ward, yes. Council Person, yes. Vice Mayor Martin, definitely. Mayor Nickerson,
yes. Motion passes five to none. All right. Thank you very much. Now Now, now, as far as the resolution ordinance situation, I move to table this item to next year's
budget schedule so that we have a year to debate this and have input from the CFO. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Um, is this allowed to be done by Sunshine Law? Yes, we can table item. Yeah, we can
table item. Okay. Um, there was a comment that was that was being had. As far as the resolution ordinance situation, the process for council pay has to be done per ordinance and ordinance takes
two readings. The reason why I've from the very beginning we're still in a resolution phase is because a resolution phase is not required. I was using an extra process, a
resolution process to introduce this to the residents, to hear the comments, to hear how they felt about it. I was using a resolution process that I added that's not required
so that I wouldn't even start or we wouldn't even start the process yet. So before we even get to the process, which is an ordinance process, I purposely did a resolution process
that was not required. All right? So, so, so just understand that, you know, and it wasn't any fault of anyone out there, but I understand the narrative was the mayor's trying to like rush this through. No, because if that was the
case, I would have started off with the first reading of the ordinance on July 22nd, but I started off with the resolution. I added a process. Now, the reason why I put it on July 22nd, the reason why I was trying to get it done was because,
and there's a motion, there's a second that we're going to get to, was because September is when we do our budget. I want our budget workshop is September 2nd. Come here Tuesday, September 2nd. We go through the budget line by line. I
wanted to have an accurate count. So, I wanted to see kind of where we would be as far as this would be. If we're at 3,000, that's fine, but I wanted to at least go through the process to see what the residents thought, see how everybody felt about it. So I before I even started the official process through an
ordinance, I started with an extra process I added called the resolution process. Okay. All right. That being said, we do have a motion. We do have a second for tableabling this. Do you want to table this to a date certain? Do you want to
table it uh council person to the budget workshop? Do you want to table it to which is September 2nd? I want to table it to the budget workshop. Fiscal year 2026. Fiscal year 2026.
We have a table. Ah, forgive me. No, no, no. Sorry. Don't clap. I told you guys I warned you guys not to clap for things here. Okay. I want to I want to table this to fiscal year 2027 discussion. Forgive me. 20. So fiscal year 2026 2027.
27. Next year. Next summer. Next summer. So 2026. So the way the budget works, so it would be fiscal year 2026 2027 is what it would be, right? But when the county boils it down to one year, we're talking 27. Okay. All
right. So there there's a motion. There's a second. Madam, I mean, Council Person Lightoot Ward, you still have the second, correct? Yes. Okay. There's a motion. There's a second to table this to the budget year fiscal
year 2026 2027. That's right, Madam Clerk. Roll call. Roll call. Council person Winters. No. Council person Lightoot Ward. Yes. Council person Irv. Yes. Vice Mayor Martin.
Yes. Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Motion passes 4 to one. Next, we have um a quick uh summary, Mr. Topfield, of our uh audit. For the first time, you guys, in a very long time, our
audit was on time today. All right. On time this year. Um this is the first time since I've been mayor. When I took over as mayor, um we were we were behind on audits, but we're we're current now for the first time. All right. They're come give you guys a summary of
that. No, not really. Just CFO and auditor going to give us a report. Good evening, mayor and uh council uh residents. My name is Harry Tenfeld. I'm the CFO of the village of El Partel. Uh
here to introduce uh Elias Rodriguez. He is the lead auditor for the firm Cababayroman Cababro. Uh sorry about that. Uh he's here to just give us a status update of the V finance of the village from the previous audit.
Good evening. My name is Elias. Let me fix this. I'm a little tall. Good evening. My name is Elias Rodriguez. I'm the senior manager of uh CFLGC uh LLP for short. I'm here to present the financial the basic financial statements
for the September 30th, 2024 audit. I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet and as entertaining as possible. I speak accountant, so it could be a little bit boring. but I'll keep it entertaining. So, I just want to go over
a brief overview of certain sections of the report. Um, to start off, I'm going to go to the to the independent auditor's report. Now, the independent auditors report can be found on page one of the financial
statements of the document. And I'm just going to read the opinion. In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of
the village. That is an unmodified opinion and that is the only opinion that anyone would want to be associated with in an audit. Next section that I highly, this isn't my humble opinion. I highly recommend you read this section. It's management's discussion
and analysis. It's the reason why I recommend this is because it's less technical than the rest of the document. It's um it's written in less accountant, a little bit more management, presents everything in management's perspective of what happened uh during the year. It
compares performance to the current year to the previous to the previous year in addition to some budgetary information. and you're going to see capital assets in addition to long-term debt and a brief description of management's
management's uh outlook of the of the village. So, if you're not going to read anything else in this in this document, I highly recommend you look at the management discussion and analysis. The next section would be the audited financial statements, the basic financial statements which will be on
page 12. And you're going to see the governmentwide financial statements which is in full acral basis. It's pretty much a an overall view of the of the village and you'll see that on the first two pages. Following that would be
your fund level financial statements which present individually uh the trial balances by fund. So that's where you'll find your general fund, your special revenue funds in more detail. Um the next section,
everybody's favorite, is the notes to the basic financial statements. Um this is a little bit more technical. It's a more detailed information and required disclosures as required by Gatsby uh to the financial statements. That's going
to start on page 18. Following that section would be page on page 40, which would be the required supplementary information. this additional disclosure. Um, something I would like to highlight in this section,
it has some tables that you would, if you want to look at the pension plans and all that, they will have tables in there. However, if you want to look at a budgetary um, a budget to actual comparison of your financial statements, you'll find it in this section. That's that'll be of
your general fund. The final section would be start on page 50 which is your compliance section. Now this is pretty much the auditor section where we add required um reports that are required by the state of Florida in
addition to Gatsby. Um I want to I want to point out that yes there are there are some there were two matters that were reported. However, as the mayor just just mentioned as and uh something I would like to point out is that in the previous year you had the
village had five findings and they were able to reduce it to two this this year. In addition to that, I I was actually the auditor um for this for the village in the previous years. Um and they've always had a a late financial reporting finding. Um but this is the first year
where I'm seeing on the report that they actually that that was removed. So that was remediated. Um so that's great news. Um this concludes the financial statements portion. I would like to present the communications letter. The communications letter is required
communications to those charged with governance. In this case it's the mayor and the council. And uh it's pretty much the uh report card of management's performance of for during the audit. And we're pleased to announce that there
were no significant uh difficulties uh dealing with management. It was pretty much smooth as as in previous years. They're very very responsive and um I see that the trend is continuing. So that's great. Um so yeah, I think that's that's it.
Thank you management for for everything you do. If you guys want any more detail or have any questions, just reach out to me. Um if you want like you know just kind of like to dive in deeper just reach out to me and I got you. I just have one quick question if I could for the auditor. Just one quick question.
The remaining um item uh is that a through item from all like like is it remaining from all pre there was four audits back or three? We were behind we were behind four or three from what I can remember from remember is four. Yeah we were behind three and then the fourth
one is now on time right. Yes. Okay. So the findings that were there, the first one, I imagine there were a lot of findings and then now 13. Okay, now we're down to how many on this timely one? I don't think I was that abusive, but yeah, we're down to we're down to two findings, right? Yes.
Okay. Out of those two findings, are they both through lines from all the previous audits or are they new items? Um the the two items that I noticed were were repeat findings. Okay. Um, but they're not they're not from the original 13 from what I can remember.
What are they? Um, for the benefit of the audience who hasn't had the knowledge of reading the report directly. And while the auditor gathers himself, I know we're losing folks um, you know, slowly. So, before we do, I do want to
implore everyone that's in the room today because, you know, you care about the village as as much as we do. I do want you guys to stay engaged. Even this stuff, take the mayor up on his offer or us. Call us and let's go through the budget. Call us and let's go through
your ideas. So, the thing about it is sitting up on this day is it's a it's a tough job, right? And I don't think anybody up here is doing it with any sort of ill intent or any sort of grand plans to like scheme you out of something. Uh we're all doing it out of a love for the village. But this is a it
is a a difficult job, right? As you can see, we're all different people. We have different ideas of how things are going to go. The more support we have, the better. Even better for those who want to run and take the seat in the future. This is a village where you can do that. And I think we should do that. The
reason why the salary is the way it is. I think it contemplates not one person bearing that burden for five, six terms, right? I would love for there to be um a robust set of individuals that are willing to really educate themselves
about the village and turn some of their great ideas into uh reality. I would support that wholeheartedly. And I encourage you to not just leave the conversation after this, but to stay really engaged. This is a very small village and we all matter and we all can
make a difference. And it shouldn't just be on those of us on the deis to um kind of keep track of all this stuff because we can do it together honestly. If you have a question, you can reach out to us. We can go through the budget. We can talk to the CFO, talk to the manager. Um
so let's let's keep it like it is tonight, which was a beautiful group discussion and a group effort, and I would love for it to continue to be that. So with that being said, I'll turn it back over to you. Yeah. So the only uh findings I'm seeing are for bank reconciliations and uh
deficit fund balance. Deficit deficit fund balance. Okay. Meaning we don't have reserve funds. Uh that's well it's a def it's a deficit. Um I would have to because of the like so we're carrying $100,000 in debt still from a previously
significant loan but we we've got it down to 100,000. Is this is that speaking to the fact that we still carry a little bit of debt? It'll be best to discuss with management. Okay. I have more detail on it. Okay. Fair enough. Um to answer your question that that the
the deficit sorry the deficit is more is related really from hurricane Irma. Um unfortunately you know I don't predates me so I don't know all the history but I know there was some challenges with uh getting recouping some funding. Um, so
with the rec we were able to recoup a a major portion of the expense for Hurricane Irma. So, so we're in good shape. We just We're definitely in we're definitely in good shape. We're definitely better today than where we were last year, two years ago, three years ago. Next year's this year is even brighter than last
year. And 20 FY26 is even looking brighter than current 25. Okay. And that'll all be seen shortly at the uh budget. All right. Yes. No, thank you. And rest up for September. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much you guys. Um,
any questions or comments from the audience? If you have just come up, say your name and address for the record. Uh, Diana from um 4489 Street. I no thank you everybody for the discussion. I my comment was uh and I'm not in close
vicinity to the circle and I know we discussed about this runaround uh for a while. Uh but it seems like it's a go. Um, so my question or comment rather is that can we please make sure that the
buses go through and the concerns that people brought up during this time are addressed before everything is going through because it seems like some of the concerns that the the public had were also shared by uh
the council. So it's not like stopping the project but like can we double check and make sure before we go ahead? Okay. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from the council? I mean from the audience. Yeah. Yeah. Which are we on the agenda
item or are we on good and welfare? We're on good and welfare. On good and welfare. Okay. So you can talk about anything at all. It's even the agenda item. So we're good. Um hi Alexandra Basa 120 Northwest 86 Street. Um I would like to uh follow
your idea which I believe that there's um you know like a big sentiment of there's more people that want to participate and have their opinions heard. Um so I don't know how do we go about having residents including in all
the committees the public safety code enforcement finance public affairs public works. Uh so there's an input from the the residents before the the decisions are made. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Well, the next person's coming up. I do just want to remind everybody that Ronda Santis used imminent domain to build a torture prison in your backyard. Okay. So, as soon as you're on the wrong side of list of things, they're going to take your property from you. You need to start interrogating the white people in your life and finding out which side of
this thing they're on. 33% of the white people in this country are openly racist. You need to figure out who they are in your life. Okay? And there's another 20% that are dismissive and passive about it. All right? There's a white supremacist in ma in Washington
DC. There's a white supremacist in Tallahassee. I grew up with white supremacists. I was a white supremacist for a year as a teenager and one of our wiser friends let us out of that mess. And I thank him all the time for that. Okay. The year before that, I was into
gangster rap. So, go figure that one out. All right. So, I want you guys to understand that imminent domain was used to build a torture prison in your backyard. You want to go first? I just have a quickie. Go ahead. Um, so Edna Edelman, 301 Northeast 88 Street. I just wanted to ask if it's
possible to have a Zoom for these meetings because a lot of people aren't able to come. Um, I'm actually like, you know, doing a live stream for them. Um, is that a possibility? Um, I'm going to answer all the questions. I got I got it written down.
I'll come back to it. Okay. So, hey, I'm back, y'all. Um, so, uh, let's go over some things we discussed. Right. So, he said that I watched I say your name. Denise White, 173 Northwest 88th Street since I was 12
years old. Right. So like um yeah I just want to say let I'm confused am I? Yes. So he said watch the meeting right and then he said um as soon as this proposal is dropped this will be approved and then there was a proposal for a raise.
Now I know we tempered that for 2027. I promise you I'm going to be here for 2027 too because um I want to thank y'all. Now somebody made this and said no it's because of raise why we all came out. You know, we all started coming out because of developers, right? That's why we all started coming out. And then I
went back to sleep and then somebody said, "Hey, hey, look, look, look." Now they doing crazy stuff again, right? So, it's not the first time they doing crazy stuff. They stay doing crazy stuff. But it's okay because we're here, right? And we going to hope that we all stay here and stay involved because that's the one
thing about this whole craziness that's fabulous is that they got us all up out of our house and to this meeting. That's the best part about it. So, we gonna make democracy do what democracy do. Now, democracy, as far as I understand, is for the people, right? And I saw a big crowd of people say, "I don't want
no roundabout." But we got to roundabout anyway. But don't worry, y'all. Don't worry, cuz election year coming around again. You feel me? That's number one. Number two, they keep saying that we not listening. I watched the meeting. I watched the meeting again. Mind you, that was a very boring meeting, but I watched the meeting again. You know, I
listened and I still felt where my girl Tamara at that there was a rat in the barn. You feel me? I still feel like there's some rats in the barn. And I understand that you want to tell us that. Hey, hey, hey. We be working hard. We be working hard. But you shouldn't have to, like my girl said, you shouldn't have to tell us you working
hard. We supposed to see you working hard. And I'm in love with you, Mr. Mayor. But unlike all my council members, they say we, you say I, I I I. And if you doing it for us, it's coming from here. We're not supposed to pay you for it. They're supposed to pay you for
it. If you doing good works, it shall be returned to you tenfold, my boo. All of that. So the I I I and come see me, come see me. If I watch a meeting and I see that something smell funny, it just smell funny, boo. That's just the way it is. It smell funny. And because now you
got us all fired up, especially me, I'd be up on this podium just talking, don't I, y'all? Right. Yeah. No. No. fired up so that I'm a part of democracy now. So, I'mma thank all of y'all. Thank you very much. Because the when you guys go
crazy, my neighbors, they come get me and then I show up in this yellow outfit looking all cute and stuff going, "Yeah, no, we here." And I think we concerned enough to watch what's going on. I think we gonna be here more often. And it's not gonna be one no more, baby. It
should be about five or 10. And then when the stuff gets real crazy, oh, we gonna call Hello. We gonna call for everybody because that's the way democracy and we supposed to check you. And you say that people not we supposed to check you. We are the people. Y'all should be voting what we want. Not just
explaining to us how we don't understand. We understood. We understood and we didn't want it, but we got it anyway. That's okay. Election day come. Anyone else? Public comment. That's a tough act to follow there. Um and and hey, I I share your sentiments,
ma'am. You know, a boss told me one time that um you can do lots of good for a long time, but like one ashit moment can ruin years and years and years of work. And I mean, you know, one of the issues
here is is that, you know, it came to this point where you guys had to do something so extreme that that there's there's now issues of credibility here. Okay. and and I hear all kinds of comments and all kinds of things. We
just heard from the auditor. I mean, I I'll have to I I'm gonna have to, you know, look into this and correct something. Okay. From from what I heard when my wife was the mayor, when I was the first guy of Alpert for years is that money was embezzled from Hurricane
Irma. That money was stolen from the Hurricane Irma. Well, from what I understand is that FEMA reimbured us all the money from Hurricane Irma. So all that was Okay. So that's one. The second piece is is that the former administration
brought money into the village. Okay. They brought money into village from the kavista project. They brought money into the village from the state for the seaw wall and other things. And so you know I I honestly I mean the the the level of
BS around here has risen to to a high point. And yes, maybe maybe substantively now we've passed, you know, the this this I mean I you know I feel bad like hey I council person Irma I disagree with you. You do answer to
people. You answer to the taxpayers. Okay. So and if you haven't figured that out like that that's why everyone's here. Okay. And so to me, I think it's very important that we need to work work the management side of this thing, the
substance side of this thing needs to be worked, okay, a little bit better. I mean, no offense, but the roundabout project may have taken years and meetings and all kinds of things with the county and so on, but no one knew anything that was going on for over two
plus years. There wasn't one report. There wasn't one mention of the council. There wasn't one email. there wasn't one meeting or update or so on. And so that's the issue. And now we raised all kinds of issues. You guys have said that you're going to address them, okay? Even
though we then approve this or whatever without addressing them, we're just going to address them now. Um I just think that hey, like we got to sort of take a you know to reook how we're doing things. Um, I mean, communication is very important and so, you know, I think
you've heard from a lot of the people here that communication is key. You know, no one debated with the council that safety is probably our most important function here and there's nothing more important than public safety, especially for the safety of the
kids near the school. The thing is is how do you go about addressing it? And to me, it wasn't sufficiently addressed. It's great that you had all these meetings with the county. you didn't have them with the people here and maybe a couple years ago there were some discussions about it. But the fact is
we're talking about a major sort of showpiece of the village that no one's seen a picture of. And today when I can ask AI to generate a picture of hey how could Elbertal's you know front walk that hey I agree with you. You know what's funny is that my business has
gotten cited for for grass in the cracks of the pavers and for bare spots on the swale, but this village hall here has it and it's and it's not been address. I'm getting fine, but the village hall doesn't. All right. And so some things have to tighten up around here. And yes,
elections do have consequences. Yes, I think Anders, you're going to get what you asked for in terms of contested elections. I mean, in the end, like, you know, I'm just And hey, let's face it. Mayor here does a great job and works his ass off. Okay. But but he's just one
person. All right. The thing is is it takes three votes to approve anything here. And and from what I've heard, some of the commentary tonight is so outlandish that, you know, again, um we all need to look at this as a village and we all need to look at this as a community. And and I mean going back to
what I said about Miami Shores, hey, they're great people until, you know, they're they're pushing all their traffic through our town and and we're the ones basically suffering and paying for it and like nothing's been done. I I appreciate Omar bringing that up a couple years ago, but we had and we had
a meeting with Miami Shores on the traffic circle two plus years ago, but nothing is done. Okay. And I hope it does. And and hey, most if not, you know, all of us are friends here, but I mean, hey, this is business and it's about the money and and oh, by the way,
it's about uh the the rights of the voters here and the community. And so I just hope that um we can get some things fixed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. So, we were not fully recompensed. Okay. Hold on. Congress. I got to listen.
Council person, Mr. Mayor, they have you have to let them speak and then we'll answer. Okay. Just remember your answer. No, no, no. This is good and welfare. So, people are just speaking. There's not there's not back to the council on this. But let them speak. All right. We're doing the public comment portion of
good. Let Let them speak first. Okay. Michael Roman, 334 Northeast 86th Street. Um, for the record, I've been a public servant for about 20 years. I've been with the city of Miami for 10 years in the Department of Human Services. I oversee one of our biggest civic engagement plans. And the one thing I'll
let all of you know is civic engagement is a two-way street. As much as you want us to give you a call and reach out to you, how are you all reaching out to us? Um, I oversee a city of 480,000 constituents. We don't have 2,000 here.
If each one of you took 500 people, I would expect you all to say, "I gauge the pulse of my residents, and I can tell you that over 250 of the constituents I serve want the roundabout," or don't want the roundabout, and I'm not hearing those factual numbers. Therefore, when you do
say people want the roundabout, why aren't you encouraging them to come into this room knowing that there's going to be advocates against it and saying, "We need your voice for it so the constituents can see that people want this." So, I would like a little bit more effort from you engaging me because
I can tell you I don't know any of you and part of that's my fault because I haven't reached out to you, but part of it's your fault for not reaching out to me. The one thing I also want to mention is my department oversees a workforce development and we often have to do audits of industry standards and
industry salaries. I looked at the salaries of elected officials of the 34 municipalities across Miami date county. The salaries you're all requesting are for municipalities that have at least a 100,000 constituents. If you did an
external audit, I would assume your auditor would have noticed that the market standard for a municipality at 2,000, the elected officials are not making that much. So why is El Portal the outlier? I I have a great vision. I
love Elportal. I'm so like I put you guys on a pedestal, but I'm sorry. We're not servicing over a 100,000 residents. You're servicing 1,800. Civic engagement should be easy. You should be looking at what the other municipalities are paying
their elected officials. Not only meet that, but then be slightly competitive. Um, I'm more than happy. You'll be getting emails from all of me and all of you will be getting emails from me because I'm more than happy to help you all on how you can engage your residents so that when you come up here to vote,
you know that you're voting for the voice of the people. If you cannot sit here and tell me that a majority over 51% of your constituents want this in a municipality of 1,800, come on. I do it for 480,000
constituents. Thank you. Alexandra Basa, 120 Northwest 86 Street. Um, I don't know if I missed the answer to my question, uh, but I I still didn't hear, if you can repeat that for me. I'm
sorry. Uh why are not engineering plans after two years or four years of you know these uh process being you know um that is that is one question that kind of makes me wonder how everything all the rest of the process are being
handled because you cannot bring machinery if you don't have engineering in place that is one thing the other uh wanted thing that I wanted to request is um you are very happy of having more people
engaged here and um one I'm one of the people that are trying to have more people you know being more you know committed to being here um but we have to be mindful of the resources and one of those resources is time people sit
here until crazy hours and is we have sometimes we have to listen to nonsense for half an hour 45 minutes And I I think it's disrespectful for you know everybody's time. Thank you. I'm sorry. Veronica Hanigan, 435
Northwest 87th Street. Um I have a concern. My vehicles have been burglarized two times in four months. The first time I tried to call the police department and this how it went. I called the village hall, no answer.
Had a message to call 311. 311 want to know why I called. Mind you, they're in my yard burgling my burglarizing my car. Called 311. They said, "Hold on, let me call El Portell. Call me back. They didn't get an answer. Call 311 again." Oh, we got someone. They're going to
call you. They're in my yard. Elert, please call me. What's the problem? Someone's breaking in my car. Okay, I'll be there in a minute. I'm on another call. I said, ' Do you understand? They're in my yard. Okay, we're coming. I call 311 back. About 10 minutes later, they didn't come yet. No, not yet. Okay,
we'll call them again. I said, they're gone now. Okay, but we going to call. They still going to come out? Nobody came. This was in April. I called 311 again. We're going on 20 minutes now. I said, you know what? I'll take care of it myself. Don't worry about it. Four
policemen showed up. Four. Two from here and one from here and the rest from Miami Shores. My question is they of course they said, you know, we're short staff. It's only one policeman at night. How many policemen do we need in a day in El Patel? How
many crimes occur during the day? The other night, someone tried to break in my car again. It's not on record. You think I called the police? I took care of it myself. It's to me it's like the police
department is not being managed properly. And I see there's job openings. I know they're short. Hear it all the time. My second concern, you ever try to get a permit here. When you call somebody and you tell them, "Oh, I live in Elertell. Well, I could do it
without a permit." No, you got to get a permit because if they see it, you know, they're going to find you and me. Oh, I don't like working with El Patel. It's going to take about three weeks to get a permit. That's the other complaint. My third one, these things. We're a no
solicitation village. We can't write these people or find them to bring revenue in that if they keep putting these things on our doors, we're going to find them. Is that a possibility for them to stop between Joe's Lawn Service,
FHA, Miami Shores papers they throw in my driveway, which I've written them to stop doing because I don't pick up trash. They still keep sending them to me. There has to be a way. It's in I just looked it up. We're no solicitation
village, but we get solicitation every single day. That has to be a way where we could write them to stop or find them if they continuously do it. That'll bring in some revenue. And lastly, Fred,
that's what I call this pothole on 86th Street that comes up every time we have a heavy rain. And I believe someone on the council mentioned that we just put a band-aid on it. There is a problem in that area in front of that house close
to Miami Avenue that every time it rains, it's a pothole that comes there and eventually somebody's going to get hurt and it's going to count to cost us a lot of money because they're going to sue the village. And my suggestion, as
the young lady said, who's been here for five years, and I I don't hope nobody throws rocks at me, in the other businesses that I've worked with, people in management were paid on bonuses. I don't have an issue. Me personally
speaking, if the council can show they've done, they pleased the community, they've done this, hold the election and say, "Does the village approve of giving the council a $20,000 bonus, a $30,000 bonus, and let us vote
on it." That can be done yearly and divided amongst the council based on how we feel you've attended to our needs. that can be an option for revenue. I'm giving a solution. That's my advice. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Anyone else? Uh, my name is George Alvarez. I live at 165 Northwest 88th Street and I've got some prepared remarks from Joe's lawnscaping services here.
Um, I want to thank the council and the mayor for doing the right thing tonight. I think credit credit where credit is due. I encourage you all to uh embrace the opportunities
at public involvement with regards to compensation in the future. Nobody in this room can say whether or not you guys deserve a small raise. I can't. We'll never find a consensus. Uh
the mayor was kind enough to indulge one of my ideas. He didn't comment on it, which was doubly kind. Thank you. But just because we're putting this off until a year from now doesn't mean we can't examine it so that we may be
mentally prepared not just for that one resolution and ordinance that may come a year from now, but so that we may be mentally prepared for when a proposal or a bit of information does not pass the
smell test. And I'm very serious about this. We get an announcement for an agenda on a Thursday night, sometimes on a Friday. We basically have Monday to research it because we don't have Saturday or Sunday
to, you know, call professionals, ask for third opinions. Hey, that dude I know at work who's an accountant and can tell me about this. So, I'm also going to encourage transparency, which can be done in very practical and simple ways, such as planning an agenda outright. We
know things happen, emergencies pop up, roofs get really rainy, and thank you guys for that with uh Mrs. Campbell's roof. I know it was no small task to go through the kind of gymnastics that need
to be gone through, but it shows you guys have a big heart or big hearts. I I think that there's a danger when we start getting the political side and the
administrative side mixed up. Kilpatrick knows that. So we're Elpertel 2,000 people about five blocks by 8 blocks about we only have limited space. We only have limited resources we only have limited
tax base. While we should certainly look to enhance our tax base in some ways at what cost are we going to do it? So when we start hearing proposals, when we start hearing developers ask for variances and mixeduse buildings of
eight stories here and there, we have to be educated about what that is going to mean for our community. And when I say community, I mean when we have an acceleration in demographics in
population, we're going to get more traffic. We're going to get impact on our ways of life. We are going to have to think about things differently. So, you don't like the the the way a one-way street sounds? I I don't personally, but
if we're going to be adding 5,000 residents, 10,000 residents, can you smell it? It's happening. But if we're going to be adding those many residents where there is a a lovely advantage, I hope in tax base, let's
make sure that that tax base is worth our handling whatever burdens have to be handled. Lots of cars. We don't have sewers. We keep on hearing about sewers for a very, very long time.
So, when I hear that our CITT funds are being spent on a roundabout that nobody seems to really want, I cannot help but think that that $300,000 from the state of Florida DOT,
we didn't need to take it. If we knew that we had $252,000 in CITT funds that could be spent doing French drains, doing paint marks on on roads, doing
stop signs at a place that's supposedly unsafe, but there's only two stop signs there. Like I don't think we take $300,000 from the state just to take $300,000 from the state
when that 252 that we then have to spend are so precious. And as far as the salaries upcoming, referring to what I I I I I said before, it's dangerous to mix the political with the administrative.
We have a city manager. We have a city manager style of government. Our council, I believe, and you can have a different opinion. happy to talk to you guys about it should reflect the concerns and the will of the people at
the time. They are chosen to vote because we can't all vote. It would be too crazy, you know, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be public input. So when I hear sophistry,
when I hear stories about how how, oh, we want you guys to be involved, but yet since I don't know, several years now, the former committee makeup, which used to be able to contain residents who are
not on the council, is now all council. Only a few of those committees have have met like in almost a year. P&Z has to meet because there's business to happen. Just I'll wrap it up. Summarize it. Appreciate it.
But I'll be asking for notes later, guys. I'll try to I'll try to hasten it up. When I when I hear stuff that that that we are being invited to be involved,
I see that as a little cracked door that we're going to have to exercise our democratic muscles to open up a little bit more. And I'm hoping that the council and the mayor and the staff will rethink and be a little bit more willing
to have public true public input because when we have a crowd like this that has a reaction about something, it ought to be listened to. I'm sorry for taking up so much time.
Thank you for indulging me. Thank you. I appreciate your hard work. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Who's next? Public comment. Last public comment of Come on. Just say your name, address for the record.
Hello, I'm uh David Wells. Uh 189 Northwest 89th Street. Um I have two things. Um shoot, what was the first thing? Oh yes, I am an educator by trade. Um, and my
job is to help people connect with things that maybe they don't know or want to know. It is my job to reach out to them my hand. And I feel the same way. I'm new to this. I'm new to the city maybe four years, but like in these positions, it would be nice to have that
civic engagement. If I was in one of these positions and I never have been, so I don't know the ins and outs. and you know please chastise me if you feel like it but it is your job to to reach your hand out to me and say please get involved I would like to do these things for you
guys I would like to do these things so like that's something to me like if I was an educator and I just went to this room and didn't do anything and expected the kids to come to me or the teachers to come to me and say hey I really want to learn this teach me how to do that I would be failing at my job second thing
I sent a couple things to the police department here Um, and I did like an Instagram post about it and I think I might have even texted the mayor about it. But I get up pretty early in the morning to take a bike ride in the morning. And every time I do, I mean, I
am there's very few people at five o'clock in the morning driving down North Miami, but every single one of them is going 120 miles an hour. Every single one of them. I sat there one morning and I videoed for five minutes.
You could barely see the cars going by. And I said, "Hey, revenue stream. Put a cop here. Every morning from 5 to 8 a.m. you will make $10,000 a day off tickets because everybody drives down that street so blindly fast. So like why
not look into those sort of, you know, revenue streams?" And I don't know the ins and outs again of what that means. How much of you know ticket money do we get? Do we give it to, you know, Miami date? Do we, you know, I'm not sure. But I know that there is like absolute insanity there. every single morning. I
I'm dodging cars every time I cross that street. It's like, why not? I don't know. I think it might be a good uh good idea. So, that's Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Anyone else? Good and welfare public comment. Just repeat your name, address again,
please. Hi, Velvet Connelly, 355 Northeast 87th Street, um Albert Hall. Um, so what I heard tonight was it sounded to me like there was an issue with communication
as far as information, right? What I heard was with the roundabout project. The city managers started getting the grant funding back in 2021. In 2021, there was a different council, right? The most of the people that were on that
council are not here today, right? And then there was some large time frame with getting the permits from the county which also oh sorry out of uh out of this council's control right um and so at the same token so
that's not their fault but then that information didn't appear to be disseminated to the community in a way that they understood where we were in each stage of the process and it sound like that created a lot of confusion that led to distrust and frustration
that bubbled up till tonight. Now, I don't know if that's I know that's probably a super simplification of what happened, but it sounds like to me that's the undercurrent of what created the climate that we're in now. And so I just wonder if we could learn a lesson from that and see how we can get better
processes to get regular information not only about projects and where we are in in in the stages of of getting certain things done and also when people in the community bring concerns where we are in the process of those concerns being
addressed. But it also sounds like we need more transparency and upto-date communication about positive things that are coming from the council and coming from the the the um city manager, things that are getting done that just appear
to be in the dark, right? Where you guys are like, well, we're doing the work and we're like, well, we don't know anything about that, right? So, I think there needs to be a process to just get information out, the good information of what's happening when the mayor is making these meetings and he's like,
"Hey, I was at the meeting with the Miami Shores mayor and you know, like let you know, get that out in real time, right? Let people know what's happening." And then the same thing when people have concerns, let us know where you are in the process of addressing that concern. even if there's not
progress. Let us know that it's the county, it's the state, it's not you guys, right? So, I think that's what I heard sounds like, you know, streamlining. Um, but I'd also like to propose some way to generate revenue. It sounds
like there's a lot of projects that need to be done. I get it. You guys are a municipality, so you're looking for municipal funds, but Elortal seems to have a unique advantage of being a nature preserve, being a bird sanctuary. It seems like there's so many marketable
aspects to our community that we should be able to bring in sponsorship funds. We should be able to bring in pilot project funds. We should be able to bring in revenue from other places than just a tax base. And so, it seems like there would be an opportunity for that.
And that might open up projects being completed more quickly. And if we move more quickly, we can keep the council accountable because it's hard to hold people accountable now when they weren't even the council that was on when this stuff got approved. That creates an
issue, right? So, it's like we need things to be streamlined. We need things to go faster. We need more money to come in. And it just seems like if we do that then you guys also probably could get a raise because I do think that if people are doing work they they should be paid
for it but I think that the result should speak for themselves. So that's my opinion. Thank you very much. Manuel Martial, 911 Northwest 1st Avenue. Uh, so I definitely want to echo the um sentiment of transparency. I I
did have a question of where we can find the audit uh because I did go into the financial department and I can only see the budget. So that's something that I would be very interested to see and I'm sure other residents as well. Um, and regarding the roundabout, it looks like
we're moving forward. You know, happy to hear that there's, you know, there's been studies, but very concerned with, you know, not even knowing how how it'll look and, you know, if buses will be able to go through. Um, being a director
of e-commerce, managing uh millions of dollars in budget of, you know, $4 billion revenue e-commerce website in the past. um even those things that are digital are very slow to change. This is going to be extremely difficult to
change and it's a it's going to be a permanent fixture. So, I would echo what some of the residents said, just let's let's make sure that it it does what it's supposed to do and it um helps with the problem at hand and not not create another problem where buses will have to
be rerouted somewhere else. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Public comment. Good and welfare. All right. Hearing seeing none,
we'll we'll close public comment. Come back to the council. Uh, I know council person wanted to say something and then we'll go to manager Lou and then I have to I have and I'll ask your questions that were asked. I just have two or three things to say. Um, the first is it's odd to me that Mr.
Pace took personal issue with me personally because I'm the only no vote on the item he didn't want. So that's red flag right there. Uh, we did not recompense the face. We did not recompense all $2 million, guys. Our output from FEMA was 2.2 2
million. 2.2 million was our output from FEMA. The village acquired a loan of 1 and a4 million. Okay. 1 and a4 million. The village asked the bank for 1 and a.5 million. The bank would not give it to I'll say them. I wasn't on the council
at the time. Shortly after the bank did not give the village one and a half that the village was asking for. The bank said, "No, you can have one and a quarter." one and a quarter million was the debt that we took on with uh first one bank and then it got switched to another.
And that debt of uh that was taken out from the bank is what Mr. Pace is referring to in terms of recompense. And that we're still $100,000 short on that. $890,000 in cash reserves that existed
in August of 2017. That's the issue. That's the issue. I made no mention of what happened to that cash. Uh, I've never uh I've never said anything
publicly to anybody about what happened to that cash other than the fact that I know we don't have cash reserves any longer. $890,000 was not recompensed, plus another h 100,000 that were still carrying an outright debt. This village
is in debt to the tune of $100,000 right now. Has anybody heard of Hurricane Aaron? Cross your fingers. Cross your eyes, cross your toes, call your friends in the Carolinas and say, "I think we're going to be okay down here. If you need
a spot, come hang out." Because the Carolinas are about to get punched in the face hard. $890,000 cash reserves. That is what we're missing. Plus the $100,000 in debt we still have. So
that's that. All right. So, let me just say real quick, let me just say real quick, you guys, Mr. Pace, you know that good and welfare is not debate. Understood. Okay.
The thing is is that I I just want to talk about the fact that in terms of communication, I'm not against the roundabout. See, that's what I mean. It's like you guys are not listening. What we're saying is is not we're talking about what, it's how. That young
lady who just spoke, she just talked about how we do things versus necessarily what we're doing. In my particular case, I have issue with how this is being done. We just approved an over half a million dollar project for a
village that you say is in debt and we don't know what it looks like. Okay. That That's all. Right. In addition, I appreciate you voting no, Mr. Urban,
but but that's not we didn't we weren't saying no to the project. We're saying is how it's done. At least follow through some due diligence and at least show the people how our money is being spent. Okay? So, we can at least see it. I I had I had made specific mention that
I saw some architect uh uh some engineer draw drawings from four plus years ago I think right and then we don't even know when that traffic study was from or whatever but that that's it and so that's that's what all we're asking for is for you guys to listen and and to
communicate that's all. So thank you. Thank you. Um anybody else from the council have anything to say? All right. Hearing none. Okay. So, um, mayor, you did say it. I could say Oh, yes. Address something, please. I do
want to say that I, um, provide a monthly report. I've been doing that since TW since I've started working here. Every monthly report. I've issued gave a status of where we were in this project. What I will say is I'm a oneperson operation. So, it is difficult
for me to get the word out to about my my um accomplishments. So when we do have our council meetings at the end I'm given the time slot to just give some highlights but I always ask people to please look at the manager report because we do so much more than that and
it gives you a highlight of every project that has continued throughout the several years I've been here is on the village website under village manager reports and it dates back to um September 2017. So um I'm always
available to speak. just getting out and telling and talk that's difficult for a one person show that's doing other projects as well. I understand the transparency need. I would love to have more, but if you could just work with me, do know that those reports are there and anytime there's a question, you can
con contact me. And um you know, unfortunately with this roundabout situation, I've never knew when these permits were going to be approved. So, we never even knew if we would ever get there. It took us so long to get there. And then when we were finally given the okay, we had to move quickly. So I understand the frustration about the
communication but do know that um what transparency I am able to give I give a monthly update on every single project that we do here in the village. Thank you. I do have a comment uh just quickly. Um
the there were two gentlemans that said gentleman that stated that they worked in civic engagement. I think that's a really great opportunity if you want to um volunteer or share your insights. I would love to get information on that. I do think that a lot of the elected
officials that you see that are very visible and really getting that information out. They have teams behind them. Um they have people who work in a civic engagement department who they are able to like you know get information to quickly and are able to know gauge the pulse of the community and know how to
effectively communicate. Some people are whizzes at Tik Tok, Instagram, they're everywhere. We know who those elected officials are. I do not have a team. I'm not sure if anyone else up here has a team and we definitely don't have a civic engagement department, but we want to engage. We do. Um, so I think that
that's uh the the biggest uh uh hurdle to jump over is it is a two-way conversation and I think both both sides are violently agreeing that we want to connect more. So if you have the strategies to share with us as far as how to do that, I don't think that
anyone on this day would say no, don't don't share it with me. And if you wanted to volunteer your time, which is very valuable, um, and your expertise, I definitely wouldn't say no to that because we are up here spinning our wheels, but we are also, well, I can
only speak for myself, but I'm I'm also a person. I'm an attorney. I'm a wife. I'm a mom. I have two kids that play basketball. I'm always in someone's gym, and I'm trying to do all of the things, and I'm trying to do it with integrity. Um, and I care about my name. So when
we're in a room together, I never with you guys impute any sort of negative intentions onto you and and and never kind of uh associate your name with things that I think might be untoward. I think that that's, you know, that's not a very accurate representation of of
what we're up here doing. So any strategies that you can share uh as to how we can communicate some of the awesome things we're doing or get more information from our residents would be great. I know you said the one to 500. Um 500 is a lot with the way that I do
it, which is the people that I know, that I see every day, that I walk around and meet uh with my kids, I ask them what they think. They know that they can come to me and talk about what they think. Uh the people that come to this room when we send out those flyers saying, "Hey, we're going to be talking
about this at planning and zoning." Uh we engage with them and I engage with them robustly to figure out what they think. So I definitely don't just come up here and represent only myself, but it's never a bad thing to reach out to more people and more easily quantify
that engagement. So if you have those strategies, please feel free to share that with us. I'm sure that we would all uh appreciate it because I can only speak for myself, but I think this true for everybody. We are just up here really trying to do good work. Um and we
we understand that the nature of the beast is this. If we said no to that roundabout today, um I don't know because I I I'm not a prophet, but I would think that the next meeting we would have a very large room full of the
people that we spoke with and pled in previous meetings saying no, that was the wrong decision. Because although I mean for sure we we care and your voice is very strong in this room. Um all 19 all 2,000 of us we're not in this room
kind of you know actively polling what folks feel and think. Um if my friend who's in civic engagement is able to share with me some tools where we can do that on a larger scale um I would love to do that. Though the voice in this room is rather loud. Uh I've been
charged with thinking about all of the conversations that we've had in total um across the years that we've been considering this particular issue. Um so yes, I'm open to engaging in the conversation. I'm coming with good intentions. I would appreciate it if you
would give me that benefit of the doubt. Um especially when talking about things like smelling a rat and other things like that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Vice Mayor. Um anyone else from the council? Yeah, just one super last quick comment. In
high school, I was 17 in Topeka, Kansas. We had a state representative come to talk to our debate class because we were in debate. So, state representative came to talk to us. And one of the examples he gave of how it's a hard thing to do to be a representative was the fact that gambling expansion was coming up for a
vote. And so, he was explaining to the class that gam, you know, some of his constituents were for it and some were against, right? and he wasn't sure which of his constituents to kind of go with. I asked him a question. I said, "Why don't you just vote your conscience and accept the consequences of the election?
So, I guarantee you, I'm already sitting here. I don't answer to anybody. Neither does anybody else up here. Neither does the mayor. Your state representatives, your state senators, your US representatives, your US senators, they have their seats. They don't answer to
you. They don't answer to anybody. They have the seat already. They have a seat already. So, I'm telling you, I don't answer to anybody. Most of them will tell you they actually do. Who do they answer to? Who do they answer to? Hands up. Who do they answer to? Who hands them a check? That's who
they answer to. I stand by my word of telling you flat out, I answer to no one. Thank you very much, Council President. Um, anyone else from the council? Any other questions or comments from the council?
All right. Hearing seeing none. Um, Miss Edelman, we'll look into the Zoom. I don't know if Miss Edelman's still here or not. We'll look we look into that. Um, we were strictly on Zoom. That's saying, well, this would be a hybrid situation. I know. Um, we just have to look at that and look at it with
going into the budget season. uh you know back during COVID of course we were all on Zoom and then um Governor DeSantis he stopped strictly Zoom or whatever for um municipalities and there used to be like a funding aspect to it also you know during COVID. So Governor
DeSantis stopped that and then went when when all that ended and he did the whole open Florida again we went back to in-person meetings. Um some very large municipalities like uh city of Miami, Aventura, um they do the hybrid model which is in
person and then live streaming or whatever. They'll bring in their own like um monitor or they'll hook up to a monitor for live streaming. Um it's been very expensive which is why only the large the largest municipalities do it. Like even like the RA don't they don't
do it you know only a few of those do it because of that reason. So, we'll have to look into that and kind of see how that will work out. Um, for Miss Edelman, uh, Miss Baza, for the committees, this is the thing. So, for the committees,
to get individuals, and I'm going to go to something else in a second, but to get residents on the official committees, we would first have to pass it through the council, and then in the 2026 election, we would have to take
a vote on it. and then we would have to implement it after that if it passed. The reason why is because in our charter it doesn't state that in our charter what it states in section 4.01
and this is uh E and F. There shall be the following committees established by the council um appointed by the mayor to meet recommendations to the council for consideration in the designated areas. public safety committee, public works committee, public affairs committee, administration and finance committee,
planning and zoning committee, and code enforcement committee. That's E. F says the mayor shall appoint a council person to be the chair and other members of the council as members of each committee. We got to change that. The only way we can change that is to first vote here. Then
it has to go to a referendum to where it goes out to the residents to to be voted on during an election and then it would be implemented. So that's why we can't do it now. All right? Right? That's why we can't add um you know, look at our ancestors, blame our ancestors who set up the charter for Alberta back in the
days. That's why we can't do that now. Um that's another reason why while I'm on the subject, for those who are saying um send the council pay to the residents, let the residents decide. It says the same thing for council pay.
The council pay is is it doesn't go to the residents and that's in the charter. So we can change that to where that can also go to the residents. But first we have to pass it up here. Then it would have to go out to a residence on the next uh either midterm or presidential election. Next one's a midterm is 2026
and then it have to be voted on and then it could be implemented like that. Okay. But currently in the charter for those two things, they don't go out to referendum, meaning that they don't go out to be voted on by the the residents or the voters. All right. And um you know, like I said, that's the way we we
would have to do it. And you know, I'm not necessarily against it, but I would say though that you know, for th for those who think like, well, you know, here in Alberta, um, you know, the residents should should vote on, you know, what we get paid, which is fine,
but just understand that us not doing it, don't think that's us not doing it that way with that procedure, that's not us doing something nefarious nowhere. And we could do it here and we'll be, you know, the the first ones,
but nowhere in the nation does the voters pick what the people get paid. It's never been on your ballot in your lifetime where you walk into and take a vote and it says the president should be paid. That's never on your
ballot or a senator should be paid or a congressman should be paid or a state senator. That's never on your ballot. It's just never done like that. So we can be the first in history, but just understand us not doing it that way doesn't mean that we're hiding something
or it's just it's never done like that. You never vote on there's never a vote like that that where you walk into a ballot and walk into a voting booth and you vote on what elected official gets paid. You've never seen that. So um the next thing uh Mr. Alvarez, I think part
of yours was the committee with the residents. I answered that. Um, and the council pay with the referendum. I answered that. Uh, Mr. Marcel. Yeah. So, the transparency, we'll definitely get that out. The reason why the budget um
hasn't come out yet is because we're finalizing the numbers and that'll go out like a week before the workshop. So, you know, get the most accurate numbers. So, when we come into the workshop for September 2nd, Tuesday, that's when we'll go through the budget
line by line. and we're, you know, we're getting the budget ready for that. Okay. So, that will be that. The audit will put up on the website. Um, Miss Connelly, I agree with you when it comes to communication. Oh, speaking of communication and speaking of
committees, Miss Baza um and uh Mr. Alvarez also in the July 22nd meeting um which was you know the $700,000 for the street repair and stuff like that and the
municipal pay was first introduced uh right above municipal pay which is F5 F3 and F4 I established the architectural landscape and environmental mayoral advisory board and the coastal mayor's mayoral advisory board. And so these two
things you guys are going to be getting um in my next flyer package. This is for the coastal mayor's mayor advisory board. This is for the architectural landscape and environmental mayoral advisory board. It explains to them what it is. Residents can join them and these are mayoral advisory boards especially
for you guys uh Mr. Alvarez who are worried about uh development and residential development. Um the architectural landscape environment and environmental mayoral advisory board. That right there deals with residential
architecture. That right there deals with residential architecture. Okay? Deals with site plans and things like that. And so when these come to you, just make sure that you look at them um and read them um so you'll see what boards and you can join
both of them uh if you want to and just reach out to me and the information is there. That's the way that even though they're advisory boards because legally I can't have them bind it to the council because in the charter, you know, residents can't be on a official
committee. No. And I was going to get to that. No. No. Mr. Yeah, it is. That's the way you can get residents on these advisory boards. I've been on the council for 16 years. I've been mayor
for five years. I was vice mayor for eight years. And then I was a council person before that. In the 16 years, there's never been residents on the committees in my six in my 16 years. So, I don't know how far back that went. All right. And so, and so we, like I said, we can
change it, but I told you guys the process of getting that done. Okay. Um, Miss Veronica, sorry about the burglarized vehicle. Uh, you kept saying 311, but I don't know if you meant 31. I know I know 311 is like the information you can call that to like report they
called. Okay. But I I would always say even if you don't think and that was an emergency. Absolutely. Um but even if you don't think and I always tell residents this always call 911 no matter what. Let them tell you it's not an emergency. Okay? For anything. Always
call 911. Always always let them tell you it's not an emergency. Um, and as far as the police, like I said, I'm sorry that happened to you. I apologize for that. I don't know what happened there, but I know that you know, thankfully, um, you know,
since we revamped the police department, uh, I usually get nothing but positiv positive views from the police that, you know, they're around more often and things like that. And I even get a lot of complaints from them stopping speeders. I get complaints from
residents like, "Man, they're stopping too many of us." So, um, but we'll look into that. And the pothole, I'm not sure you you mentioned the pothole is the one on 86 Street. So, that was So, we repaired that if if that's the one if that's the one you're talking about that had all the water and
stuff that's repaired. So, um, yeah. So, we so we fix so fixed that and and and Mr. Alvarez knows the backstory to that and uh and uh what how that had to be done. Uh that was ticket money. I spoke about how I get a lot of residents complaining
about cops stopping residents too much and and all that. So that was a ticket money situation. Understand um most of that money goes to Miami Day County. And understand also the money that we are able to keep, it can only be used within the police department. All right. It can't be used ticket money
can only be used within the police department. Okay. And so yeah for Yeah. for for police things. Yeah, but understand Miami Day County keeps the majority. Just like your taxes, you guys, your taxes, Miami Day County keeps the majority of your taxes. All right.
So, so that's how that goes. Um, any last questions or comments from the council? Thank you for everyone that stuck around to the end. Hold on one second. Council person, you you spoke about communication and a new approach.
Oh. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, I mean, we can talk about that offline. I do a lot when it comes to funding, and I can give you the history of that and the grants and things like that. Um, you're not wrong. As a matter of fact, uh, from that July
20 22nd meeting, that $700,000 is not taxpayer dollars. That $700,000, that's why I had to move it to the general fund. That $700,000 for street repair and road repair and stuff like that, that's not taxpayer dollars. So, um, so we'll talk about that more offline. Uh, Council President Winters.
That was it. Thanking everyone. Okay, I got you. Thank you very, very much. Mr. Alvarez say spit it out. I see I saw you spit it out real quick. Spit it out real quick. Now I'm going to Council Person Winters. What's your last thing? Hurry up. Just spit it out, my brother. No, no, no. It's it's it's more of an offline thing, but
I like I appreciate that resolution on the on the 22nd regarding committees and citizen involvement, but back in the old days, it wasn't our charter that the committees.
So, yeah. I don't know when it changed. Like I said, I've been here 16 years. So, um I'm not sure when it happened. No, but it says it specifically states in the charter. So, so it's been in there like that in the charter. Uh very
quickly, Mr. Pace, please. I think I think what is the county level of the county or women point resisting of course we understand But here
I guess ago he piece of paper came out that's the issue. Yeah. So I have two boards that was created on July 22nd. So reach out to me about these boards once you get these. Council
person Winters the floor is yours. I was just thanking everyone for sticking around. Thank you everyone. You were awesome tonight. Thank you very much. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Moved by council person Ward. Do I have a second? Second by Vice Mayor Martin.
All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Hearing none. The special council meeting for Tuesday, August 12th, is adjourned at 6:30 p.m. I mean, no, 9:34 p.m. I'm reading