all right guys we have one presentation today before our council meeting we're going to get that out of the way now um and I'm joined here by my colleagues i have from right to left or my right to left Councilman Steven Herszburg Vice Mayor Brian Mora Council Member Alex
Sanchez and Council Member JC Fernandez uh with that I'd like to invite a representative of the mental health task force that we have here in town to come on up there we go we have the Colonel Bill Perez and I'm sorry but Marley Marley
Hernandez there we go from mental health so for those who don't know last year in the fall we held our first ever mental health awareness uh festival of the fall festival right and as part of that half the proceeds were going to be donated to a charity of the committee's choice and
that charity ended up being our local Girl Scout troop who is here to accept um but with that I'm going to turn over to the colonel to talk a little bit more about uh the mental health festival just you know just to put on people's radar so they know to go this coming year and to go ahead and formally uh introduce
our recipients right thank you very much Mayor uh my name is Bill Perez i'm retired Marine Corps Colonel that's why he kept on calling me Colonel um I'm a member of the mental health task force on behalf of Lindseay Wallik who is the chairwoman of the task force uh I really appreciate uh you know the town and the
Girl Scouts uh for everything they do um the the fall festival was a pumpkin festival and basically we sold pumpkins to uh you know and had pumpkin painting and we had a bunch of different mental health providers that were around providing information what we try to do
was we try to attract uh families and children because we had a whole bunch of events we had laser tags we have a bunch of things going on and as they went through they were able to uh meet with some folks who were mental health providers because we want to make mental
health care approachable and you know and get rid of the stigma and so one way we figure is if you have something fun to do for kids the parents will show up and the grandparents will show up and then they'll be able to hear about that especially with you know after uh co and
everything the level of anxiety and the level of distress is so much higher but we decided to you know split the proceeds that we made from um the festival and the festival is going to be held every year it's going to be held in October so please look for the next date we'll have another charity we're
splitting the money with and we're going to split this uh year's money with our in our first annual fall festival with the Girl Scout Troop 902 can you please come up and let me tell you about this Girl Scout troop because they do so much um first thing you know I met them
because they were connecting I'm also the chair of the veterans committee for the town they were connecting veterans with you know rescue animals to become service animals and another project that they're working on is trying to have
those veterans who have service animals who have to get treatment at the VA hospital um have a place to put their service animal that's near the VA hospital that will bring the the service animal after service dog to the veteran after the treatment's done surgery's
done so they have their family member there which is their service animal so and the last thing that they're doing for us is you know the persons who going to walk around and take down the names of everybody's QR you know tree and stuff to do QR codes it's those folks so
they're going to volunteer to do that so I'm very honored to present the check i told the girls I think the check is for $150 um I think it's a little bit more than a$150 yeah for uh [Applause]
$1,847 to the Girl Scout Troop 902 so I think you can you can buy a lot of badges for that one the real checks in the mail the real checks in the mail that's right trust us we're the government right here first well uh thank you very much Bill and
Marley and thank you very much guys for being here uh we're going to get started uh shortly so uh hang tight and uh we'll get underway ladies and gentlemen we're going to get started everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance i'll go ahead and I'll lead
us in the pledge this time go around hands over your hearts i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for
all the prayer today please stay standing will be led by the vice mayor bow your heads and pray lord heavenly father we thank you for bringing us here to this uh council chambers we pray that you bless us with wisdom foresight and a kind knowledge of
the desires of our residents uh we pray that you help us uh carry out the best interests of all of our residents uh through your son Jesus Christ we pray amen amen amen amen you may be seated and uh I got a little ahead of myself we
adjourn the meeting at 6:30 p.m and uh Madame Clerk please call the role council member Fernandez present council member Garcia present council member Hburg present
council member Sanchez present council member Cuadra Garcia is absent vice Mayor Mora present mayor Diegas I am here you You have quorum Mayor excellent uh we are now moving on to the order of
business deferrals additions deletions are there any motions as to that mr vice Mayor Mr mayor I'd like to propose moving up uh the budget amendment item i know a lot of people are here to discuss that item uh so I think it would be helpful to our
audience to have that one discussed earlier hey what where do you want to move it to uh that's what I was trying to figure out uh after after special a after public comments
okay so 14A to after public comments uh I'm also going to go ahead and suggest that we take up 16 C immediate or together with 14A with uh since they're similar items that is Councilman Cuadra Garcia's discussion regarding the uh the budget amendment are there any other
proposed um uh motions yes uh Mr mayor I Councilman Hersburg I suggest we move 16FG and J they're all regarding uh the ST STD gate guard so we should just hear that together so just take it together when we tackle 16F correct so F G and F
G and J with F got it g and J mayor uh I'm sorry who else mayor just a recommendation since I can't make a motion uh and I don't think the vice mayor will object uh the special needs advisory board report and his item uh 16D are interrelated so those should be
discussed together so moved so I'm going to recap uh the various changes right so we're going to move 14A and 16 C to right after public comments that's those are the items dealing with the budget amendment we're going to take up 16F G&J together related to the NSD
or now special taxing district guard gates together when we get to 16F and then we will take up the vice mayor's item on the Demoa Foundation at the same time that we take up the special needs advisory board report is there a motion mayor just a point of clarification i think you said 14 A and C i think you
meant 14 A and 16 C oh yes sorry 14 A and 16 C yes just to be clear um so so moved yep so moved is there a second i'll second any discussion all those in favor say I i all oppose no the the
agenda is amended and so with that let's begin with public comments madame clerk good evening and welcome to the regular council meeting if a person is wishing to participate in remote public comments welcome to the meeting just be reminded
that you have to click on the reactions icon and select raise hand and it will allow each participant to speak one at a time and if you can also remotely want to call in live just to listen to the meeting the only thing you need to do
and you want to speak as well you can raise your hand by pressing asterisk number nine and it will allow you to speak all these comments and questions from the attending public shall always be directed to the mayor in a courtious tone and to ensure the e orderly conduct
and efficiency of the meeting public comments will be limited to three minutes per person welcome and if you're here in the council chambers and you want to participate please just approach the podium welcome and be reminded to state your name and address for the
record hey Bonnie I'm sorry the the mic is still off thank you bonnie Cron 14770 Lewis Road good evening Mayor Diegas Mr peterman council members and staff there are several items I want to comment upon
but I'll go through them as quickly as possible number one Lake Patricia and Lake Katherine neighborhoods have to get their electrical wires underground please bring some pressure to FPNL to get this done for many years
we've been told that we were next on the list but the disfiguring of our canopy trees due to the drastic pruning around the power lines is very demoralizing and worse yet it's destructive to the resilience of the trees in the event of a storm
two something must be done to coordinate with Opaaka air traffic controllers andor the FAA to return the flight path for approaches and departures to the more narrow corridor that it was until
about five or six years ago the funnel-shaped patterns that exist now put far more residential areas in great danger also it should be noted that the diagonal new diagonal runway was supposed to bear most of the traffic
because it prevented broad areas of residential homes from being in harm's way instead they're using the long east west runway for most of the traffic putting more planes and pollution over the more residential areas as well as
daycare centers and schools it also causes two flight paths to actually intersect each other on the final approach area right over the residential areas which is a very bad situation number three my son had a
great plan for alleviating some of our traffic congestion involving the bridges on I75 the FDOT sent him a letter confirming that they wanted to implement it and it was something that they themselves had been wanting to do even before it had
been suggested by him the only thing they needed to proceed was approval by both the Hyia and Miami Lakes councils i've asked Eric to resubmit his plans to you so that you can see them in the hopes that you'll see what you can do to
get that plan adopted he would have been here himself but he had to work tonight in Palm Beach four lastly I want to speak about the possible foreclosures due to leans on properties i rarely find myself disagreeing with my dearest
friend Hope Reynolds but as I read her opinions on this issue some different thoughts came to my mind first I do not view our current local government officials as trying to purposely be unfair to our residents i don't see them
as enemies or in any way trying to be a communist style regime trying to confiscate private property those people like Hope who experienced this type of travesty firsthand are naturally very leerary of any actions that bring that
action to mind but as I see it the attempts of our town government to make property owners comply with our town codes is actually done for the protection of all of us our property values are being protected
because homes that do not comply with our codes tear down the appearance and well-being of the community in general i believe that anyone who purchases a property in Miami Lakes or any other community for that matter has the
responsibility and the obligation to abide by the town's rules and codes just as any immigrant coming to our country has to abide by our laws or face the consequences freedom comes along with citizen
responsibility of course I do think that each case of a foreclosure or lean must be given careful consideration to to individual I'll just finish to individual needs or hardships um properties on the foreclosure list must
not be homesteaded properties accuracy is vitally important people who are in need of help should be accommodated but otherwise the town does indeed need to have the ability to enforce its codes or else the whole aesthetic and harmonious
look of the town will deteriorate and no one wants to see that happen so thank you for your attention thank you and next speaker oh if uh gentleman in the black pole if you want you can sit there and then when Dave is done you can go ahead uh name
and address Dave okay dave Oliver i live over here in Lock Isle and I've been heading up our senior softball program uh for the last 15 and a half years a program that we really appreciate the support of the town you've done a great
job uh keeping us up to date with a great uh field number two right next to parking and uh we really appreciate that uh so uh the town of Miami Lakes is very special and one of the reasons it's
special is because you have standards here but there's one area that we need to upgrade to get into the proper standard and that is the Miami Lakes Optimus Park where we play and there's
just certain things that that need to be improved and uh so we understand that uh there is a movement underway uh to upgrade this at a reasonable uh acceptable digestible cost and uh we
really appreciate uh your support uh for this program to improve the optimist part i'll make one final observation considering the makeup of the people uh behind the DAS uh at our game on Monday
we had 26 players 24 were Latins and there's two kind of Latins that play geyser ball the ones that never shut up and the nuns that do not say a word there's no middle ground it's one or the other and those of us who are
not Latin we appreciate it what's going on we don't understand it but we appreciate what's going on dave I'm sorry thank you for your support i I need your address though before you go uh if you can state your address into the record please 15314 Lock Drive East thank you Dave
okay very good Josh next name and address sir hello my name is Nathan Padilla 15549 Miami Lakeway North apartment 202 Miami Lakes Florida 33014 last month I presented to you with a petition to redevelop some of the tennis courts at Miami Lakes Optimus
Park into dedicated pickupball courts when we last spoke I told you about the sport its growth the community and what it's asking for and the current state of the courts at MLOp this time around I want to paint a more personal picture for you all currently there are four
full-size tennis courts available with two of them having pickle ball nets installed with only two pickle ball courts the community is facing many issues while trying to play the first of which is weight times while currently eight total people can be playing at a
time the crowd grows sometimes to 16 24 32 and sometimes more and people would often be waiting close to an hour just to play one game i've personally started noticing a trend of people leaving after playing one game or often opting to go
to a different park instead of MLP to avoid the wait times i would rather see our residents enjoying our parks instead of going somewhere else the second issue is a positioning of the current courts the mesh on the surrounding fences is supposed to help prevent the wind from
interfering with the games played as much as possible for tennis since the ball and rackets are much heavier the current configuration works well but for pickle ball with the ball and paddle being lighter there's much more interference since we are playing in the center of the tennis courts by optimally
using this space with a dedicated pickle ball courts the mesh on the fence would be much more effective at doing their job and suppressing any wind interference lastly I wanted to tell you a bit about my personal experience and a sentiment that many of us residents
share the sport is growing fast i started playing a few months ago in that time I have met a wide range of people from different ethnicities age generations and sexes some who have been playing for over a year some a few months and other who are just starting
and everything in between every month there are new faces con consistently showing up to either learn the sport or to find people equally as experienced closer to home the community is generally very welcoming and we'd love to see more people in competition if it keeps growing the way
it is without the room to grow then some may end up discouraged while others go elsewhere i've personally witnessed and spoken to residents who are preferring to leave the city and go to parks that do have the room for people to play i live my lakes my entire life i love
living here i love this community but I don't want to see it stagnate i want Miami Lakes to grow with its residents and live ups to its logo when it says Miami Lakes growing beautifully thank you very much i want to show the support of all our pickball communities if we can all stand up guys this is our
community here thank you thank you very much next speaker name and address for the record daniel Gonzalez 6971 Bottle Brush Drive all right those that play pickball Optimus Park you stand up one more time
yeah but but I would ask though just have you please stand but no no no no more clapping thank you they stood up standing is is is acceptable can you stand up i just want to give them a feel for the amount of people that play Optimus Park for those that are not familiar with pickle ball pickle ball has a max player amount of four people
we have two pickle ball courts in Optimus Park take a look around you saw how many people were standing up that's probably like 15% of the total amount of people that play pickle ball every day i graduated from FSU a few months ago probably like around six months ago last
May when I showed up to Optimus Park I knew no one i had been three years in Tallahassee and I came back home to find a new sport to connect with people and in those in those months that I've been here just a few months I've gone from knowing zero people to now having a
community of friends and partners spanning over 50 people everyone that showed up today I did not know their names and they came up to show up with me and with this entire group today for the love of the sport this isn't just about playing pickle ball this is about
creating a community in Miami Lakes what other uh courts are there there's PSN there's one at McDonald's but what makes these parks special isn't just the courts themselves but who shows up when PSN has their lights break what happens everyone from PSN comes to PSN and comes
to Miami Lakes why cuz they know Miami Lakes has good lighting up to 9:30 which other parks do not have they have pretty good courts and pretty good nets the park isn't bad but it just is not meeting up with the standards of the amount of people that are coming people from Halia people from PSN and I know
you guys really care about the community you guys care about businesses when these people come to play at Miami Lakes when they come to Optimus Court I know other people are also using that same park but when they come for pickle ball these people from other communities are staying in Miami Lakes when we finish playing where are we going main Street
we're eating at Sal we're eating at um Cancun we're eating at CMDitos we're staying here this is profit that's coming from others districts other municipalities coming to pickle uh coming to Mami Lakes due to pickle ball people are coming in people are playing tournaments people are spending time
here people are spending their their dollars here so it's not just about I think it although community and the sport is fun there is also an incentive to help Mammy Lakes grow having this community isn't just about the sport it's about meeting people i like I said before I've met so many people
throughout the sport and they've as well have people that have come from Myiramar every day from Myiramar to come play Optimus Park they're not doing it for the court they're doing it for the community and if you guys if you council member really care about this community you would want to spend the money where
it helps foster it not just in in businesses but actually helping grow a community that makes people feel connected together not just through pickle ball but through Miami Lakes so please help Miami Lakes become what it possibly can and help us fund the pickle ball courts so thank you guys thank you
for your time thank you thank you and for uh just for all those that are here on the pickle ball matter I can assure you the town is working on some solutions but of course you got to bear with us and and uh be patient but uh as a fellow pickle ball player myself we're working on it so just want you to know that next speaker please name and
address yes uh Bob Jones 7026 Green Tree Lane Lock Isle first of all I I would like to thank all of you and also the people who maintain Optimus Park for providing us with well-groomed
fields to play geyser ball every Monday and Wednesday morning it's a pleasure uh I'll just give you one anecdotal because when we go by the fields we see hundreds of people playing but I just want to narrow it down to an experience
that I have had we open up our our games to family members when they're in town so in 2017 my family came in from Arizona okay my grandson and his father were here i
asked them if they wanted to play ball in the morning and they said yes let's do it i was a little impre nervous because I didn't didn't want to screw up in front of them but in any case I was happy to go go to the field so it turns out the good Lord smiled down upon our
families and we had a great game nolan hit a home run Tim hit a home run and I hit a home run it was the first time in Giza Ball history that three generations in one family hit a home run in Giza
Ball all right uh that that is a memory that I will take for the rest of my life and hopefully into the next life it is something so special and we still celebrate it when we get together this happened in 2017 remember okay so I
just want you all to appreciate and know how much doing that means i know we can get all get caught up in the finances and all this of it but this is what it means to people this is what it means to individuals sometimes and this is what
it meant to me and our family so again I just want to thank you all for the efforts you you have done to make this possible i do appreciate it as does my family thank you thank you very much
next speaker name and address kenneth Perez 6737 M uh Main Street apartment 122 um Angelo I know Angelo very well because I lived on Angelo's block for a lot of years i was born and raised in Miami Lakes i'm 35 now my
family lives i live back here my brother lives on Main Street we haven't left Miami Lakes we haven't left Miami Lakes because we love Miami Lakes right miami Lakes is ours i I've always felt like Hell is in the corner Miami Garden in the corner but we're like this special
place every time that time of year comes around when I start getting text messages in regards to who I should vote for and why to me it's I vote for the things that I think are important and I leave it at that but I've never had a reason to actually come here and speak
to you guys to me pickle ball is not just a sport i play as Shoulas i play golf as Shoulas i've been playing golf for 20 years and I love golf pickle ball is a community and it's sad that Hay Aliyah has multiple parks that they've invested a lot of money in pickle ball
psn has invested in pickle ball miami Gardens has invested in pickle ball miramar CB Smith Park Penrookke everybody's invested in pickle ball and I'm not saying we need a lot i mean we've we've created a a plan for you guys we've shown you the layout i think that if you tell everybody here that
they could put money in a bucket right now to get these parks built we will all put money in that bucket to get this park built so it's it's I I just want to make it very important and un so you guys understand that we're not all here because we're just lazy bored i'm a
business banker my brother-in-law he's right there that's my brother-in-law he's a CPA we all have great jobs here we all This is our hour and a half two hours a day that we could go out and do something we love with the community so I I understand you said that you guys are working on it i hope you are because
for the first time in my 30 well not 35 in my since I was 18 that I could vote this is something that I'm going to consider something as small as pickle ball because that's an investment into our community and Miami Lakes Optimus has been the same for a very long time yes you guys have invested a little bit here and there into that park but that
park should be a staple of Miami Lakes and we've just let it the same way HA they let it go we shouldn't let that park go so all we ask you guys if we came here today to let you know pickle ball is important to Miami Lakes we don't have it it's the one thing Miami
Lakes does not have please if you can help us out with that thank you next speaker good evening my name is Jim Hamilton i live at 8528 Glen Karen Lane in Miami Lakes
33016 to the council to Mr mayor and to the town manager i am here to support the return of the monies that have been transferred in 2023 and moved back into the park budget at your last meeting this money was
taken from the park fund and needs to be used for what it was planned for Optimus Park if approved that would provide $1.7 million to finally start the current park improvement plan let me give you
one example of how delaying these improvements will cost the town more money back in 1995 27 concrete light poles with stateofthe-art lighting were installed at a cost of
$200,000 today 30 years later those 27 concrete poles with LED lighting would cost the town 1,687,000 as you can see the cost to wait is too expensive every dollar in the 1.7
million is needed to start the park plan as an example the bathroom replacement for two portable toilet stations will save the town $21,000 per year and pay for itself in 22
years the wood light poles installed 52 years ago are deteriorating and need to be replaced with concrete poles for safety with LED lights installed on fields one and five this will be another
cost savings in the electricity used once the total park has LED lighting the cost savings is estimated at $50,000 per year our parks department needs to be
congratulated for developing a plan that addresses the improvements the park needs but does so with a cost efficiency savings the Optimus Club is dedicated and committed to making this plan work thank
you [Applause] welcome name and address sir carlos Fernandez Guzman 15810 Kingsmore Way Miami Lakes Florida glad to see your shoulders okay
Ed thank you for the time i I am here not to talk about pickle ball not to talk about baseball not to talk about all of the little aspects of the park that most people are going to talk about i'm going to talk about the park as an economic engine and the seed capital for our youth and the development of folks that come back to this community because
it's Miami Lakes because they want to live here and they want to raise their kids here jim and I have been part of that park um probably since the Nina Pinta and the Santa Maria we uh we've uh we've put up the light post we've done everything we could to keep that park as
the economic engine and the seed capital for youth development in this community for year after year after year i am proud to say that it's worked many of the kids we coached as little guys much like that little girl who was up here who's adorable by the
way most of the kids that at that age were playing at the park played later in the park today are residents of the park and have other kids playing at the park it's an engine it's an investment it is not a cost the park I'm a banker i look at everything in return on investment
the park is truly an economic engine and a human pool engine it is a human resource engine for this community all of those kids chose to come back here because Miami Lakes is special because we give them things that no other community gives them we give them a patch of grass where they can take their
kids and feel safe and play and relax and enjoy we give them a patch of of grass that teaches them about the principles of sports and what it means to work as a team and play together we give them a patch of grass that allows them to eventually learn how to use those same skills in the business world
and many of those kids that we taught at that park how to play a sport today run companies and our executives and feed this community back with economic uh contributions i strongly urge you to take that money that we pulled a little while ago and bring it back in look at
it as an investment it isn't a cost it will give you ROI that you will never ever imagine and Ed knows that I focus on this all the time i I've lived in this community since 1987 i've had the opportunity to leave it a thousand times when I get on a
plane in the middle of nowhere and I know I'm coming to Miami it's not Miami i'm coming to Miami Lakes those kids feel the same way returning here when we provide the amenities they need to raise their families and prosper thank you thank you next speaker name and address
please again please hold the applause because what happens is that it it consumes more time when we try to get to the next speaker and we have a full agenda tonight thank you sir good evening good evening my name is Steve Jeanri i am at 8824 Northwest 146 Lane
Miami Lakes Florida 33018 um I'm here with my beautiful wife we are fairly new to Miami Lakes my wife and I we purchased a beautiful home here in Miami Lakes uh three and a half years ago my wife is a primary care doctor at
uh the University of Miami i own a very successful HVAC company before that when I was younger I used to be a professional ballroom dancer which mean I am a very good salsa bachata meranga dancer and ballroom so far um but beside
dancing um when we moved to Miami Lakes my wife was looking for something else that we can do we enjoy our backyard we have great neighbors we love our home um we love the community um so far we've never had any complaint besides sometime
when we see our taxes but that I will talk to it further down because there's a way you guys can make us happy all right um when we wanted to do something in the community to be honest I'm going to speak from my heart not because anybody
make us feel uncomfortable it's because sometime we feel like a little fish out of the water because our Spanish is not so very good-looking um but I love the language so my wife and I we started playing pickle ball going to pickle ball
these people right here became our friends brothers and sisters at the pickle ball not only we get to do something active but we get to practice our Spanish cuz we love languages um then slowly we started going there maybe
once twice a week now how long have we been going like maybe sometimes three to five three to five times a week all right so we kind of like slow down anything else we used to do we don't go out to eat as much anymore because after work I meet my wife at the park
sometimes she goes there and I meet her um not for the health benefit of pickle ball but the way these people embrace us we were there I made I will say these people became our family friends very because um even even though I'm very
athletic but I've never played tennis so I wasn't too good at pickle ball so I was a little embarrassing because I am very competitive as a exco competitor i'm like "Oh sweetheart I'm not good enough to play with this guy." But they make us feel very comfortable and tell us "Come on and play." They become also
my coach Ollie this guy right here helping me all the time teach me how to use the ple to teach me how to serve i even offer him to pay him he said "No." He said "No this is like coming straight from our heart we We love our home we
love our neighbors but pickle ball give us something even more not just the sport but the connection we have with the community i I I please guys if you guys do what all these guys asking I promise you you have two citizen who will not complain about our taxes thank
you thank you very much next speaker [Applause] name and address please hi Lilia Zel 601 Northeast 36th Street apartment 1212 Miami Florida 33137 um I'm the USA Pickleball
ambassador for Miami date county and I've been involved um USA Pickleball is a governing organization for our sport and I have been involved in many of these meetings across municipalities in Miami date county hyaliyah Cutler Bay
Homestead uh Doral Miami day county proper from the beginning um I've learned this sport 10 years ago in Big Sky Montana came to Miami zero Miami day county was the last to adopt pickle ball in terms of in their public park system
so we have been way behind i am so happy to hear that you're all looking at funding for pickle ball courts in Optimus Park i grew up in Halia i went to HML this has been a big passion of mine in this region because I know how important it this is for community as
you've heard from all of your residents here but I want to give you a a few stats that I think is going to be critical because I hear it all the time oh this is only a fad um SFIA which is a sport fitness industry association comes out they track 124
sports and they've been doing this for many years public parks use it industry fitness industry uses it across the board what they have said about pickle ball is unprecedented growth they have never seen anything like this and you're understanding why it's not only about
the sport but it's about community it's ages from six to 80 which is there's no other sport that encompasses that and that's what Miami Lakes is miami Lakes is a community of families from all those ages so it's really important that you're all considering this investment
to convert those courts to dedicated pickle ball courts give you some some information um over a three-year uh span tennis has grown at 46% a three-year span pickleball has grown at
311% the words from the the sports fitness industry is unprecedented growth that's important pickle ball has the raw numbers are are super impressive the top five the top three activities are pickle ball that leads the way with 16 million
new players that is unprecedented followed by golf and tennis data also shows that this sport is a lifelong sport like I said from ages 6 to over 65 with the biggest growth taking place between the ages of 18 to 34 your
demographics here in Miami Lakes families kids bringing up their families here this is really important 1 million youth were added last year to this sport which speaks to the stability it feeds the sport and for this life it's going
to be a lifelong sport um so I'm happy to hear that you're all considering this and to to alleviate this because to have the Miami Herald for example who has uh um excuse me they have a um you may
conclude your remarks in the next 10 seconds okay great thank you they have now a sport a pickle ball column every two weeks so that just goes to show you you guys are on the right track give your residents what they want because I think you'll be very happy thank you all
thank you very much name and address please good evening kimberly Trellis uh 16501 Northwest 84th Avenue so good evening members of the council my name is Kimberly Tyrese and I'm proud to say
that I grew up right here in this beautiful town when I got married there was no doubt in my mind that this is where we wanted to raise a family and after eight years with a successful online store there was no question where we would want to open up our first brick-andmortar store it had to be right
here in Miami Lakes back in the 90s I used to walk past a little invitation shop in Main Street i would look into the window and tell my mom "One day I want to own a store just like that."
Today that dream is close to being a reality with the Traus Cottage our gift shop that carries some of our best selling online products including a full collection of Miami Lakes inspired gifts
and soontobe pickle ball gear i kindly ask that you support code ordinance 13A regarding online sales showrooms it would allow small businesses just like mine to continue growing and connecting with our
community and by connecting I also want to um touch on 10A um the special needs advisory board um uh chair will be speaking on you know we when you support businesses like mine you're also
supporting everyone in your community not just my family but anybody that we connect with our business loves to give back to the community we give back to special needs organizations one of those being the Demoa Foundation who you're going to learn about later for for 10 um
under 10A the Demoya Foundation is one it's it's one-of-a-kind business that all they do is help train adults with special needs to find um a job to find a fulfilling career and they offer
training to the individual as well as to the business um to make sure that it is a long-standing partnership so I am in support of 10A um so yeah when you support the Trace Cottage you're fulfilling a lifelong dream right
here in the town of Miami Lakes thank you so much for your time and since I have 30 seconds left I also want to bring up I don't see it here on the agenda but last month we touched on um the traffic for Bob Graham Educational Center schools i didn't have the chance to speak in public comment but I just
wanted to thank our police officers i know that traffic is a is an issue for everyone in the town of Miami Lakes I know that street gets bad but I just want to say as a parent of a child that attends that school every single morning and every single afternoon I see at
least six police officers there every single day and it makes me so proud and I thank you for all your hard work [Applause] thank you next speaker please come up to the mic you don't need to fill out any card or anything all right sir name and address
good evening carlos Andre's 14530 Daypine Avenue Miami Lakes Florida obviously Miami Lakes okay mayor Town Council Town Management uh thank you for the opportunity here representing the public safety committee here to ask for your support for law enforcement awareness month which is coming up uh we
would love to uh have your support to have town hall lit up in blue uh for the month i think that might be an easy transition with uh some of the conversations with the lighting up of town hall we also have uh some several events that we um you know we've worked on with different groups to um you know
support our our law enforcement on May 14 uh we have uh with a partnership with the Miami Lakes Chamber we got Major Gonzalez to uh be the guest speaker it would be great to you know have the support of you all at that event um on May 15 we have our coffee of a cop on
peace officers memorial day um at Einstein Bagels and uh working uh collaborating with uh Councilman Sanchez um for a paella which is going to be uh given to the shifts on uh the day of May 22nd at 1 p.m uh for uh both the
sheriff's office and the fire department uh and that was actually a private company that uh approached us uh for this opportunity so I want to thank uh uh Nakes Chamber President Ray Palasios Tivo Kasamayor and chairman from CCMS Mario Espino for making this possible so
hopefully we can have your support of your attendance uh for these events and also your support to light up town hall in blue thank you through the mayor hey really quick uh Mr vice Mayor Carlos which which month is it may may may that's it okay thank you okay any other
speakers in the audience going once going twice okay i see I see two coming up all right sir name and address good evening everyone marcus Gutierrez 7757 Northwest 169 Terrace great to see you all i'm coming today in support of any
funding for the park i've been a resident for 35 years my kids grew up in the park there are a lot of intangibles that you can't put a figure on a place to go with the families to interact in Miami Lakes and for kids to have a place a decent place to go and learn about
life which we learn about it through sports um all of you and those who came before you those that are here now have always said we need to fund the park we need to do something and we keep kicking the can down the road so we need to start we need to keep taking them off
the back burner and stop making excuses and fund with whatever we can so I'm hearing that support thank you thank you sir next speaker name and address good evening vivian Levy 8421
Northwest 140th Street unit 3507 just a quick uh note to show my support for item 13A um for my friend Kimberly and the Trellis Cottage i'm sporting some puzzle piece earrings from her from her shop
um she they always support the mayor's gala every year um and also Arts for Autism the organization that um does the dance class for us on Saturdays so you'll be
hearing more from me later during the report but I just wanted my to show my support for that item thank you thank you next speaker going once going twice okay come on up name and address please hi Irene
Gutierrez 8025 Northwest 162 Street hi all good evening i am here to support the motion from Councilman JC Fernandez Councilman Hersburgger and Councilman Sanchez i also want to thank them for listening to our community and for the
their initiative in keeping us safe these gentlemen exemplify true public service it's been a long road for our community we have been coming to these council meetings and highlighting safety
concerns for years thank you mayor thank you Vice Mayor and Council and all here tonight for all your efforts for the traffic of 79th Avenue for the safety of the guard houses and everything else that you're presenting tonight thank you
very much thank you very much next speaker going once oh sorry there we go so we have it seems two more just a really quick poll of the audience is there anyone else who would like to speak after these two ladies
here if you would I would suggest that you take a seat here in the corner just so I can see you um again we have a very full agenda tonight so I want to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible uh with our time you may proceed ma'am name and address please thank you uh Lydia Hernandez 7941
Northwest 166th Street Royal Oaks and um before I get started on what I really wanted to talk about Major Gonzalez do something with the lights on Miami Lakes Drive we were late because they're not in sync thank you um gentlemen I want to
thank you again and I want to thank everyone that's involved in getting on the agenda the license plates uh the the request to read the license the driver's licenses for the people approaching the guard gate in Royal Oaks at night it's very scary uh what's going on in our
community too much crime people just coming in and taking our cars now I heard there were squatters and I take care of two houses where the people don't live here on my block alone um and I think that would be a great opportunity to deter the people that know that Miami Lakes were sitting
ducks that's everybody knows that there's not that much police presence that will no offense that will take care of um you know the amount of crime that we have i I hear that there's only six six police officers at night that's very
thin amount of police officers so we I really encourage you to take the the initiative to have them read the driver's licenses and make us safer i also have some people who are shy and do not want to talk that also uh want to
thank you and and hope that you approve that if anybody is in approval of that please raise your hands couple of people oh couple of people who were probably also late because of the lights not being in sync i thank you again for taking that into
consideration and please do not forget what's going on with the Bob Graham traffic it's horrible for us we're held hostage if we have an emergency we can't get in we can't get out we can't go to the hospital we can't have a an ambulance come in please do something about it thank you again
and my neighbor hi good evening make it I don't need an additional three minutes okay okay literally that's fine go ahead to back up my neighbor she's literally my next door neighbor my name is But I did need your name and address Perez 7900 Northwest 166 Street um good evening to everyone i'm here just to
back uh my neighbor out my neighbor up and my fellow neighbors we need help we need help as far as the driver's license at least in the evening times just for a little bit more of peace of mind um in addition to back up the Bob Graham we've been um you know at the previous
meetings i think we're moving forward um to continue to support that because the traffic is horrible in the mornings I have to time the time that I come home and the time that I leave which is you know it is detrimental um just backing up yeah I ran into Mayor Living Cava in
Tallahassee i told her what's going on and in no uncertain terms we have a meeting coming up although apparently they were adjusting or playing around with the lights uh today yeah uh because now they're finally starting to accommodate our requests so um so that's probably what you were noticing today in particular is that they're they finally responded i have the email to prove it
and they're we have this upcom upcoming meeting but just uh bear with us a little bit while we start actually the process of figuring out what is the ideal timing they're going to each day for I think the next week or so right continually make little adjustments until we find something that is uh the most the most optimal right um but just
wanted to make that uh known for everybody out there that we're finally the countyy's finally working with us on that and the major has and the manager have both been at the forefront of that thank you for your comments ma'am please come up name and address
hi I'm Isabella Diaz 8035 Northwest 164 Terrace Miami Lakes um I was here in the last meeting i'm glad I actually made it i just literally landed at 5:00 and I just flew here pretty much um repeating what they were saying as well my neighbor just walked I literally went to
get my neighbor cuz she didn't even know where this was um dressing you know the traffic lights the Bob Graham and what I spoke about last time the left hand turn on sorry it's just I have my notes i don't
even know that yeah that one the left hand turn where there's no school there's it's a public road a lot of people say you know why not be able to make a left turn Monday through Friday they're going to come in from the other way through Bob Graham come out through that street back and forth so I'm just pretty much here I guess to present
myself again and just be with my neighbors in the same thing cut it short thank you appreciate the effort to be here thank you next speaker Mrs sadeno ah it's just Eddie eddie eddie all right but I still need your name and address for the record though good afternoon uh
good evening eddie Sereno 16232 Northwest 85th Court um just wanted to show support for U vice Mayor Morera's um agenda item 13A to uh adjust for
online showroom sales uh in the town in certain areas um I think it's something that will help all small businesses that uh face similar issues with rent and locations to be able to present products etc um just my support waving support and thank you all for being here and
your time thank you Eddie any other speakers here in the audience going once going twice sold all right uh madam clerk do we have anybody online yes we do if you're waiting I see
Miss I see J berg please unmute yourself and welcome to the meeting and Mr berg please uh name and address for the record and please start the timer yes can you hear me okay yes okay josiah Berg I live at 14001
Leaning Pine Drive Miami Lakes Florida 33014 uh I'm here to speak today um as others have done already in support of returning the funds to the Miami Leagues Park um I understand and support some of
the folks that already spoke about pickle ball and and do hope something will happen with that because I am a player myself but ours family's current focus right now is baseball and my son we I my son has been playing at Mine
Lakes Optimus since he was about 5 years old he's currently in Urec League and now at U Allstars so we've been playing at MLO for a long time and needless to say we spend a lot of time there every week and we're alone whether we're at the park for game or
practice during the week this park is typically packed as anybody knows that drives by um from the baseball fields to the infield green areas to the pickle ball and tennis courts to basketball court it is highly utilized
needless to say this is a cornerstone of the community and I know it's a little bit of a gray area with the county and the town but at the end of the day it's being used by the residents and I think as someone eloquently mentioned earlier it would be an investment to return the
funds and use those to maintenance and improvement of the park so I'm here in support of that um as we all know even small little short Rain events can wreak havoc on the fields and the green areas which closes
the park for days sometimes um that can wreak havoc on a typical baseball pet season which is only two months long and it's pretty devastating to the kids so I'm here to support as I said returning the funds to the Malo Park and that's all I have thank you very much
thank you very much um madame clerk any other speakers online nope i don't see any other participant on the screen i do have for purposes of the record just to state that my office
has received emails from residents all stating that they would like for half a million to be restored to be put back into the budget for the parks they all have different titles but they all emails state the same the park's budget
the Miami Lakes Optimus Park Miami Lakes Optimus Park renovation so I just wanted to state that for the record as I always do when I receive them I share with the council members and as well I photocopy and placed on the days in case the public or anyone wants to see them these
are public record emails and that is it mayor Davis thank you Madam Clerk and in keeping with the amendment to the agenda uh order of business earlier this evening we are now on 14A which we are taking up concurrently which with uh 16C
uh with that Mr attorney uh I believe has statement you have to read into the record or the title yes an ordinance of the town of Miami Lakes Florida amending the town's fiscal year 2024 2025 budget established by
ordinance number 24-330 providing for expenditure of funds providing for amendments providing for conflicts authorizing the town manager to take all action necessary to implement the terms and conditions of this ordinance providing for severability and providing for an
effective date excellent so because this is an ordinance in second reading this is a public hearing item in other words members of the public will have an additional opportunity to speak on this particular item and this particular item only um so is there anyone who would
like to come up and speak on the budget amendment going once going twice the public hearing is now closed so with that um Mayor I'm going to recognize you now Mr manager i'm going to turn over to you go ahead yep just want to recap
essentially this is the same item that you saw last month there's a couple grants that came in since last month so we're recognizing the receipt of those grants in this item and the only other thing is on the third page of the memo
the order of the items as a in response to a motion that was made last month we have moved the mini park capital program phases uh two and three up to number six on this list and there's been some reshuffleling but essentially it's all
the of the for the professional services studies they're all compressed under one title and everything else is essentially the same as last month okay um with that I'm going to turn it over to the council for a motion to get
us in the proper uh uh discussion posture here mr mayor Mr vice Mayor I'd like to move to adopt the amended budget subject to uh one minor change and that be reducing well well what I was going to say is again because we're not even
on the main item so I would just move to adopt it okay we'll get the second and then we'll do amendments yes I I'll move the amended budget excellent it's been moved and seconded we're now in discussion i believe the vice mayor had a an amendment so we'll go to him first yeah I'd like to have the number one I I
I do appreciate the manager uh combining the three studies the compensation study the the impact fee study and the renewable energy feasibility study um into one single line item rather than three separate ones um I know that that
there was uh some discussion about that at the Sunshine meeting um I would like to take that $130,000 line item and reduce it to 65,000 um and then apply any remaining uh balance left over from this reduction
so 65,000 plus any other changes that are made by the council uh to first to any to trimming any trees that have not been trimmed in the last 3 years and thereafter to sidewalks to sidewalk
repairs i'll second all right it's been moved and seconded uh we're now on discussion on the amendment only any discussion on the amendment only through through the chair uh Councilman Garcia thank you um so the total 130 you want to remove
as far as the studies um keep it at 50 is that what is that what the 65 65 reduce it from 130 to to 65 okay so then would that would you would you say you would like to keep the
impact fee study which is a possible future um way of getting more funds for us i'm not taking out any of the studies i'm keeping in all of the studies but I'm keeping them in budgeted in in one lump sum because one of the things that
I keep seeing is we're basically telling these contractors how much we're going to pay them and then they guide themselves when they do their bids based on that rather than do that I'd rather have a single lump sum that's for all the studies and that way they don't know how much of that 65 is for them how much
of it is for the impact how much of it is for the compensation we'll figure that out later but I don't want them to know i don't want to show them our cards that's kind of the the thought process behind it thank you through the mayor um I saw Councilman Hersburg's hands first so Councilman Herszburg and then
Councilman Cuadra Garcia uh thank you mayor and Vice Mayor let me ask you a question i I agree that that's likely the best use of funds and the more I dig into the issues I feel like our trees are are need to be a priority right now if you look at the the Miami
Lakes app that's the number one issue that comes up but discussions with the town manager i don't know if you have a answer for this uh would you be open to moving that money to basically a I don't know carry forward carry forward where
then we can go back to it and see where the money can be used best if the pound manager wants to if we if we cut that line item to 65 and reallocate the other 65 to other lines then we're essentially saying that
probably two out of those three studies will never happen because the dollar amount won't be enough even to fund two of the studies so if if if our research is at least within the ballpark and the when we go out to bid the numbers are
what that we had estimated that they would be then we're not going to be able to we'll probably end up only being able to do one of the studies so if we take the 65 that you're asking to to cut and we allocate it or leave it in in fund
balance we can Melissa correct me if I'm wrong right if we leave it in fund balance and when we go out to market and we put out an RFP and if the intent of this council is to be able to fund all three studies somehow then we could
always transfer the money from fund balance to fund the the second or the third study through the mayor um well just a direct response to that okay okay go ahead i I I like your explanation better yeah that's not what
I'm that's not what I mean i mean go ahead i think I don't want them to know how much is allocated if they know that there's a contingency of an additional 65 then they're going to know that there's all I'm saying and and Mr manager or Alysa if you give me an answer is I I agree that I like where
you're going with the trees and sidewalks but I don't believe that's a decision we need to make today is there a way to just put in here in in the in as in the second reading a everything left over goes in this amount and then we can come back to you a month two months three months later and say okay
you know what that money that we had there we can just leave it there and let it be a surplus for next year or we can you know what let's put 40,000 to trees oh wait there's a sidewalk issue so we don't have to come back and do two readings again that that's the question I had
Mr manager go ahead yeah we can put it into a contingency reserve and then it'll be there and in the event that we go out and we bid out these other studies and we've exceeded the 65 that's there we can in the item when we bring it for you as a procurement item then
we'll also it'll be a double item it'll be the procurement item plus the transfer out of contingency in to a line to fund the remaining uh studies right but if you allocate it and you allocate it to tree trimming or sidewalks or or the park or anywhere else then that
money's accounted for we would have to Right i I get that i just want to make very clear i'm not saying it's a contingency for the studies it's just a I just want to create a contingency reserve because I have a few cuts that I think may pass today or we can have discussion right after this i just think
that it makes sense for us come back next maybe next uh month and decide where exactly we want to put any additional funds if anywhere for example the savings here i'm all for it i agree it should be cut in half my view is you come you get the quotes for the studies
and we can make a determination of what study we believe is most important and we can do the next one later i I I agree with the cut i didn't want to spend that's the first thing I said last month i didn't want to spend all this money in studies so I'm for the cut all I'm saying is I I guess I could make a
motion a friendly motion to amend is that the savings from your cut get put into a contingency reserve but that contingency reserve is not meant just for studies it's meant for us to come back and we can tell we can look at where the best place it already exists and it'll be for really any contingency
within the general fund okay perfect so so with that been amendment profered by uh Councilman Hersburg is there a second second seconded by the vice mayor any discussion on uh Councilman Herszburg amendment to the amendment seeing none all those in favor say I i
all oppose no the eyes have it the motion carries we're back on the vice mayor's original amendment as amended with that Councilman Guada Garcia thank you Mr mayor um basically um I uh after listening to all this I
would like to see if it's possible uh if my colleagues would uh support uh to see if this uh these 28 items can be tabled till next month and all of us get together and have another sunshine
meeting and have another shot at it and talk about it i mean they were in our last Sunjai meeting it was yourself and uh Councilman uh Garcia was not there and see if we could go at it one more time and see if we can digest it and and
see it i mean there's things here that I agree with but there's just things here that I don't agree with like all these studies uh these studies are you know I actually had a study done uh an eight-page study and it cost zero so um
I'd like to see if that's possible to have this uh these 28 items tabled till next month so Councilman Cuadra Garcia moves to table the budget amendment for the May regular council meeting is there a second seeing none the motion dies for
lack of a second do you have any further discussion uh well you had mentioned that there were some cuts that you were looking to make to the amendment um do you do you have a list of those cuts ready to go are we basically going to be able today to talk about these 28 this is your opportunity one by one one by
one no well what what the way this normally works right is we discussed the entire item and then individual amendments are made right the vice mayor for example was uh moved to reduce the total number that we had allocated for
uh studies right we just uh we're about to take a vote on that one right um and once we dispose of that motion then we will be back on the main item with the amendment right and then uh you will have an opportunity to profer further uh
uh cuts if you have or changes that you want and we can take and again as far as the way it's discussed it's discussed all at once and individual changes are discussed by way of an amendment um so so actually yes now think about it because we're still on the a on his
amendment let's finish with this amendment first and then we'll go back uh to the main item and then if you have any cuts at that juncture uh we'll go ahead and and uh and discuss it then okay um any other uh any other motions with respect or rather any other
discussion on the vice mayor's amendment to reduce the total number of funding for the studies uh to uh from 130 to 65,000 seeing none and and mayor and allocate the other 65 to contingency that was the amendment yes you know um with that okay in that case
a I'm I'm going to go with a roll call vote madam clerk please call the role just be safe so the motion to reduce from $130,000 to $65,000 by Vice Mayor Mora council member Garcia yes
council member Hzburg yes council member Fernandez yes council member Sanchez yes council member Cuadra Garcia no vice Mayor Mora yes mayor Diegas yes the
amendment passes thank you we're back on the main motion which is adoption of the um the budget amendment as amended now which again is to uh reduce the professional service studies line item
at line 18 to 65,000 so with that I'm going to go back for a second though back to uh Councilman Cuadra Garcia to see if he has any motions related to any cuts that he wanted to make are we talking about Mr mayor are we talking
about item uh 42 we're we're on 14 uh A right it was 14A but again just do you have a motion related to any particular uh line that you see there on the table for example um yes do you have any I have I have a few of them okay then go
one at a time um in making your your amendments so where would you like to begin uh for example um item number one um I I have said it before that those $25,000 could be allocated uh through um
uh going out to our uh our businesses and um requesting to see if they'll support us on this uh on this item so before you continue though so on that particular line item are you moving to eliminate it to reduce it um or I'm uh
to elim to uh reduce it by how much uh as as much as possible i apologize i need a number i I don't know exactly i've asked before what are we going to be giving the residents for these $25,000 and I don't know is it a little flag is it a Yeah we don't know
well normally traditionally it would pay for vendors that provide entertainment as well as food trucks things of that nature uh perhaps maybe even there'll be a fireworks display or a drone display at some point um so it's going to go to a multitude of items so that's why and
and again we're just in the prelim preliminary process of of putting that together so that's why it's hard to say right now but what I need though for purposes of right now is a specific number if you have one as far as by what how much we like to reduce it what I'd like to see if it see if we can go uh
and get proono on it or or So you would like to eliminate the that item a a sponsor okay so we'll start there so Councilman Cuadra Garcia moves to uh zero out the funding for line item one there on the table which is the 25th town anniversary in the amount of 25,000
is there a second seeing no second the motion dies for lack of a second the next item sir the uh the second item the veterans memorial i'm in full support of it so I'm sorry what was that that that
that is a yes for me no understood but then what is the next uh um motion yeah the next change that you would like to make by way of motion you want the next one okay I got you yeah but again on the on the ones that you want to amend the
68,640 on the litter uh uh crew uh to negotiate it to uh be able to uh slice it in half okay so you so your uh Councilman Guadra Garcia moves to reduce uh item three on the
table from its current uh $68,640 allocation to half of that amount is there a second okay seeing none the the item uh or the motion fails for lack of a second please continue the the number four the
499,322 uh I'm in support of returning that back to the uh Miami Lakes Optimus Park wait I I apologize what was that support i am in support to returning that back what is What does it change oh so so you want to Okay so move on to the next one
then okay um and also item number five the uh the town lease to lease the vehicles i am okay with that one okay um item number six parks uh reinstated i
don't know much about you know this mulch situation i can't see us paying almost $4,000 for mulch i have not really been well educated on this um I'm I think uh we're getting them confused
councilman uh Cuadra Garcia are you on the mini park capital improvement program one or are you talking about item seven about the MLP park mulch am I not where hey because the 4,000 would seem to imply that you're on item seven not item six point of clarification he
may have the old version that had um the mini park program further down oh I see page 606 in your binder in the bind number six line item number six mulch no no no that's why page 606 in your book he's looking at the old uh last month's
agenda please pro page 666 did you say 666 that's not a very good number yes sir yes it it's not a joke that is the page okay well that is it that's that's basically where I'm I'm at over
here too it's slightly changed okay so but yeah ju just so you know the uh item six on the binder which is the latest version and and was uh the reordering that Councilman Sanchez had
asked for at the last one that should mean that if you Yes turn to page 666 on your binder you will find the table that we're running off of and item six there is actually the mini park capital improvement program for
$274,000 item seven is the parks reinstatement for Miami Optimus Mulch in the amount of $3,75 so that I think is the one you're referring to but it's different than our binder so or so please go to the uh the binder that has the most current version
of the list okay i'm I'm confused Mr mayor because item number six on my binder says 274,000 that's correct that that is correct that that is and on and on my other one remember recall that Councilman Sanchez
at the last meeting asked that we by motion that we reorder the number of the projects right um so that's why it's different um so I would go off of what's on the uh binder okay beautiful i got it
so basically I definitely would uh would uh ask to have uh item number six um now I'm more confused there's actually more money if you'd like Councilman Cuadra we can come back to you a little later um that way uh if you need to ask anybody
uh you know perhaps Councilman Hsburg or or Gina the clerk to help you uh uh square your notes with the new uh uh list uh that way you can do so okay great councilman Hersburg yes because I got two different amounts of money here correct yeah so just we we'll come back
to you please turn off your mic though in the meantime and and uh we we'll be back a Councilman Hsburg and then um and I guess uh Oh and then Councilman Garcia all right go ahead uh thank you mayor for for a motion um I would like and
correct let me know mayor there's two items I want to move to remove um one of them was discussed the sunshine i don't think we should have an issue let me make my motion first and then let's see sure i'm sorry but just to avoid feedback I'm trying to cut off as many mics as possible thank you um okay go ahead so
my motion would be to remove item 26 curving i I went there today it's not that bad i just don't see the absolute need for it that is that is a very big want i don't see a need there whatsoever and we discussed this at the sunshine meeting i have no idea where item 23 came from i don't have any complaints i
don't think anyone on this dis has any complaints so I would like to remove item 23 and I'd like to put that into the contingency reserve we just discussed that's my motion well just just be I guess uh just because there may be is some differences there I would
ask that we just take them up separately so why don't we start with item 26 then sure so we move item 26 and um put in the contingency reserve excellent is there a second second it okay it's been seconded is there discussion on this item again this is just solely on the
curbing for 170th uh street just a quick question to the mayor Garcia to the manager and are we having cars parked park parking there all the time is it a a huge issue yeah the or is it a the curbing was recommended when especially
uh the the kids from the school are parking a lot there and then they were uh the parents you mean the parents picking up the kids i I I think that a lot of the kids from the older grades that were that were able to drive to school were parking their kids their cars there walking through because I'm
not sure which level uh school is that one right there but I know it's connected to the other school and the bigger kids if the uh parking lot in the school itself was filling up then they were parking there and then there were cars actually staged there for most of the day then we had to get involved the
police and that that helped uh but we wanted to kind of eliminate it plus then people who come to walk the trail they that that live on the western side of the you know closer to the the bridge as opposed to closer to 79th uh avenue they were parking there and then uh staging
so there was an onslaught of cars parked there throughout the day and night uh evening and then that's why it was beating up the grass so the curbing was the purpose that was the purpose of the curbing can you just remind me do we have no parking signs on on that uh we have no parking signs there now and that
has helped tre tremendously and with the police enforcement and do we have any idea of how many tickets we've given out or any warnings we've given out for illegally parking or is that something i I don't think that we got to the point where we were citing people you know it was improved the the situation was
improved dramatically with the signs and police enforcement mostly uh warnings and we were staging an officer there and warning people not to park there and and pointing out because it was the same people over and over do you feel if we start enforcing a little bit and more gets around that that might uh you know
mitigate some of this uh some of the grass being destroyed or some of the issues we're having it's just that $40,000 for curving i agree with my colleagues $40,000 I think could be used for so many other things curving sometimes is good and I understand that but if you have a choice between curving
and and putting it somewhere uh Yeah and it was similar to the uh to the pocket parks when we when we brought forward the item to start curving the pocket parks I don't know maybe three years ago or whatever it was a similar situation people were parking in the swailes outside of the pocket parks they were
bringing their kids to use the the swing sets and so forth and when we put in the curbing and then resawed in the swailes it it eliminated the problem because the the the curbing is there 24 hours a day sure sure we can't have an officer there 24 hours a day that's the difficult part
so So if we move this to a contingency in the future we can we can we can go back and Yeah absolutely so okay so absolutely thank you for answering those questions absolutely mayor Mr mr vice Mayor on this specific issue uh wouldn't it be a lot more affordable and still
accomplish the same 24-hour prevention of curbing to just install some form of landscaping bushes some bushes it's the same exact result Mr manager yeah I'd have to price it out you know logic would tell you that
probably tree planting would be less expensive but I don't know that for a fact so the answer to your question is I don't know i'd have to price it out and give you that answer yeah on that basis yeah I'll probably end up supporting it because then if anything we can use the contingency funds for for the landscaping or whatever we choose to do
anyone else in this item councilman's answers just to back up um Vice Mayor Mora's landscaping is irrigation already along 170th to support to support that's you know with that whole area we have different things that we're planning right did the uh the glow trail there in
that section between 87th and now existing is the there is no irrigation that's that's in our plans down the road and part of that is to protect the the area first and then once we put in new sod then we'll work towards that that goal of being able to irrigate it because there is no irrigation along
that entire trail anyone else on this particular item again this is on the motion to eliminate the 40,000 from item 26 and put into contingency seeing nobody else all those in favor say I i all oppose no
uh we have one no um uh from Councilman Fernandez anyone else okay let's just take a roll call vote Madam Clerk okay so motion to remove item 26 which is curbing for $40,000 and
for that amount to be put back in the contingency reserve council member Fernandez no council member Guadra Garcia uh uh I'm you you lost me on that one yes that I'll repeat this is to
eliminate uh the 40,000 for the eliminated yes council member Garcia yes council member Herszburg yes council member Sanchez yes vice Mayor Mora yes
mayor Diegas yes the amendment passes the motion passes all right councilman Hzburg you had a second amendment yes and I I think this is the last one from from my list uh my motion would be to eliminate number 23 town hall window
tinting it's 5,000 second any discussion on this item just for for clarity mayor Mr manager in a second and and the the 5,000 also going to contingency reserve yes yes so I guess uh Mr manager I don't know if you want to address this about the window tinting
if there's a specific reason for this omar can you address the speak about the window tinting and where the item it was the request was generated from public works our facilities that works for public works good evening this is it would tackle three locations one is town
hall I mean town chambers the front lobby and also the the council offices especially the ones that are facing the the west side as you can imagine in the afternoon and when you came in here in the afternoon
it gets quite hot so the idea is to put a a film to reduce the heat transfer during those times of the day okay is uh anyone have any uh debate on this going once going twice u council Garcia we need to shop it that seems to
be too high okay so you want to vote no or or you want to you want to vote yes actually on on this one then but it needs to be negotiated okay it would always we would always go through our budget our uh procurement process the number we have here is just an estimate it's a budget number it's a forecast but
we would always whenever we don't have a contract for window it was something that we would go out and we would get three bids and then we would go with the lowest bid okay gotcha okay anyone else are ready to vote on this madam clerk please call the role so
motion to eliminate number 23 town hall window tinting council member Hzburg yes council member Garcia yes council member Sanchez yes council member Cuadra Garcia
yes council member Fernandez yes vice Mayor Mora yes mayor Diegas yes the motion passes thank you and thank you Councilman Herszburg uh um Councilman Cuadra Garcia are there any other motions that you had
uh now that you've had some time to compare mr mayor if you give me a couple more seconds I'm sure and let me go then to the rest of our colleagues councilman Garcia did you have anything yeah thank you Mr mayor okay councilman Sanchez I have one small amendment um no I have I
have I have I'm sorry Mr m yeah yeah no I have one please uh we'll come back to you Councilman Sanchez after Councilman Garcia so I want to I want to say thank you to our colleagues i think we're all thinking the same thing uh I also wanted to remove the curbing the tinting um the
the town hall exterior lighting can you talk to me that's is that also gone as well or is that did someone what it's still here is is that um up front is that would be the the lighting out up front it would be put uh newer LED lights that are
programmable you can put without cuz currently like for instance every time there's a motion here to light up the town hall in whatever color we have to put like a film on top of the light it's not meant for it these lights you could change the color they're more energy efficient and so forth they're more
programmable okay is that I don't know is that a Are the lights now working fine well they they light up the Okay um Yeah no I And I know this is this is
this is great this is something that would you know make it look a little nicer um however is it to me is it really something that's in absolutely necessary at this point for $5,000 i would say uh I would just propose on this item maybe maybe we we put it in
contingency and uh we take a look at it after we've done everything that we need to do with the contingency money if we have something left over yeah I'd like to see nice lighting in front of it it was a recommendation that was brought by the vice mayor and that's why we put it in here if it was a $500,000 item we wouldn't have put it in
here right so it it and obviously every penny counts i'll tell you why discount the the number because the curbing we're you know we're reducing we're reducing the uh the studies we're trying to we're trying to find something right we're trying to find because I plan to bring up um in in
in the using some of the contingency money to see regard you know regarding all our traffic issues that the residents have brought up um maybe a you know adding a service aid police service aid and how much that would cost right um to help with with the mornings and
afternoons and instead of having all these officers there mornings afternoons dealing with traffic maybe maybe I know it's 160,000 for a full officer but how much is a service I'm sure it's probably 60 70 half as much perhaps we can find
I'm trying to find as much money as possible my colleagues already have done a great job of reducing to figure out because I know you're working on a plan right to add police officer service aids by the way is there is there a timeline on on when you guys are going to present that to the council We're we're working with the with the police major well the
sheriff's major now now it's the sheriff's office i got to get used to the nomenclature um to look at the staffing levels uh there was a plan that we had in mind the new sheriff had and part of that new plan that we had in mind uh meant that some of the officers
would be assigned to 4 day 10hour a day work weeks the sheriff has eliminated that from the entire sheriff's department so that kind of put us back on the drawing board to kind of rework a new plan uh so we're looking at it and looking at the numbers and looking to
see if we can enhance uh patrol services but I want you to keep in mind and I sent you the the original numbers and it's not going to be hopefully the final numbers but the original the first uh draft of the new police budget starting in October for so for fiscal year 2526
the increase from this year to that year is is just a hair over a million dollars sure so it's it's it's around 10% so it's going to be significant without adding a single enhancement 100% i get it the only reason I'm bringing it up this is the third budget cycle that I
know we've talked about either adding more police officers or adding a it's it's the third budget cycle already we're on that so time's going by time's going by time's going by you know honestly I think that it's I think we just pull a trigger on at least a
service aid to help help uh especially in the mornings and you know maybe just one shift just a school and that's one less officer that could be focusing on crime instead of focusing on traffic so I'm just I'm asking my colleagues just consider that to uh and I appreciate the
lighting man i know it's very important to make make us look good but if we can just add that 5,000 to the contingency and then so we have more in the pot so we can consider when we talk about how we're going to spend it perhaps we could add a a service aid uh and help the community out when it comes to traffic
the service do tremendous work sorry and just to make sure we're in the proper posture aid um Sure my amendment is to remove the $5,000 from the uh LED lighting and add it to the contingency is there a second on Council Member
Garcia's motion yeah it's it's 5900 if Yeah well I think we we knew what he um I got to make sure accurate is there a second going once going twice okay the motion dies for lack of a second councilman Garcia you're recognized for
any other uh uh amendments or motions that you'd like to make no that's pretty much it thank you guys councilman Sanchez yeah I have just small one small one something that has been um it was around for a very long time and and it disappeared from the budget
but we all know how hard um our staff works and they're here from early in the morning when the nights that we have council meetings and very deep into the night sometimes past midnight and out of the the kindness of of of the town manager you know out of his own pocket
he orders a few things for them to eat because we're here deep deep into the night and they don't get home in time for dinner so I'd like to allocate $1,000 to be able to to supplement you know food for our staff is there a second to council members uh
Sanchez's motion seconded for discussion it's seconded by the vice mayor you're recognized Mr vice Mayor is $1,000 an appropriate amount uh I don't know i mean what is it 11 meetings a month no or sorry a year it's $100 okay so no
that's about $100 uh per meeting mr manager what was it previously allocated when we were doing the healthy meals it was a bigger deal and the the meals were more extravagant when it came out of my pocket i love my staff but I also my wife you know watches my uh my
expenditures uh we spend about a hundred uh dollars a month um providing pizza and so forth for the staff uh so we have another after tonight we have another five more meetings for the rest and and that's the thing right we're talking here about just for the balance of the
fiscal year so uh it would probably be if we were to keep with that pizza it'd be about $500 to $600 for the rest of the u fiscal year if we wanted to marginally enhance it get something that would be a little bit better then I think a,000 would probably be an appropriate number that would fund a
slight enhancement so we can get away from what one former employee described as disgusting pizza uh and and make it a little a little I take offense a little nicer we're not going to cater we're not going to be a chef back there uh making sushi it'll but it'll be something a
little Yeah my recollection from when we had it is that it was supporting local restaurants you would have uh meals from ENKC simple stuff uh you know at the time um Anna Capri you know just like you know spaghetti things of that nature it wasn't anything like you said like a sashimi bar you know or anything like
that you know um but with that is there further discussion on I just have a clarification yes go ahead so then the thousand that you want to allocate to that your idea is to draw it from contingency yes so 1,000 from the money that we've allocated to contingency
would then be allocated for this instead yes okay any other discussion on this uh Councilman Cuadra Garcia when you get a chance Oh okay yeah well we'll come back again right now we're just under $1,000 for uh
I guess uh council meeting meals hey Councilman Herszburg Council Garcia uh Mr vice Mayor anything else councilman Fernandez okay just wanted to make sure okay with that let's go do a roll call vote madam Clerk yes motion to
allocate $1,000 to supplement food for town staff during the council meetings and this money to be withdrawn from the contingency reserve council member Sanchez yes council member Hzburg
yes council member Garcia yes council member Cuadra Garcia yes council member Fernandez yes vice Mayor Moretta yes mayor Diegas yes the motion passes councilman Sanchez any other motions
okay no none a uh before we go back over there Councilman Fernandez is there any any are are there any motions that you have okay a uh Councilman Cuadra Garcia go ahead yes uh thank you Mr mayor item number 12 um parks uh reinstate RO mulch
can somebody uh tell me Jeremy what no no councilman uh or excuse me Mr manager or did you want an explanation on on those i I just uh uh I just want you to tell me how we arrived at
4160 and uh how much mulch is that and what kind of mulch and so forth give me a full digest on that mulch please perfect thank you uh mayor and council jeremy Bagdown director of parks and recreation for the town um so that that amount there is the contractual amount
for all landscaping beds and all areas that require mulch we use brown chocolate mulch it is made up of bark chips from trees it's basically a bunch of recycled parts of trees essentially so it's all natural it's what everyone pretty pretty much buys here in uh South
Florida um and it's like I mentioned it's the contractual amount so that's predetermined within our bids for the grounds maintenance for the areas defined of the landscaping of these two parks so one is going to be Optimus and the other one we'll be looking at is Royal Oaks thank you uh Mr mayor and
Council um I think that's extremely too much money for that mulch we can definitely look into getting it uh for a lot less okay so Councilman Garcia moves to eliminate uh item seven parks
reinstatement of Miami Lakes Park mulch uh is there a second to that motion i'll just second for discussion because I have a question seconded by Councilman Garcia you may you are recognized to ask your question thank you you're buying this by the yard I assume by yard it's by the yard by the by the yard by the
square yard yes by the square yard yeah okay and um this is enough mulch for the entire year for this quarter no so uh when we fund the entire park at its 100% rate you'll have two of these a lotments within the contract so essentially we should be doing it by annually yeah and
Council Member Garcia just to be clear the numbers that are in here for the two mulches for the Miami Lakes Optimus and the Royal Oaks it's not just for the product it's for the So there's bodies involved manpower there's staffing involved with the distribution of the
mulch and so it's not just for the product itself now a landscaping company does that or or the the mulch is delivered and we our staff does at least no so it's under the same grounds maintenance contract so the two vendors that maintain each facility also part of their pricing for that contractual line
item is the installed mulch and I did miss uh one other fact we install at 2 in depth of mulch okay but this isn't for any playgrounds this is more for the uh No this is simply landscaping okay two major parks in two major parks
speaking of mulch for the for the pocket parks is there a line item here for that or is that something that's already No that's a much larger uh ticket to handle well I know that after a year or two it's it starts shrinking and that the the actual usage of that which is which
is you know for safety goes away right it compacts so okay so all right and uh as far as the cost concerns have the costs gone up over the year to year on this no this is contractual so the contract that we established I believe it was last negotiated in 2023 uh these are the rates that we'll maintain from
23 all the way through 2028 so we have this locked in for Yes okay thank you any other discussion on Councilman Cuadra Garcia's item briefly mayor and Councilman Hzburg thank you Mayor um I guess trying to figure out So this is
currently we're only mulching these two once a year and you're saying it would be proper to do it twice a year we didn't fund this past year we didn't fund any so this is reinstating at least one to get us through the remaining of the fiscal year and mainly so much so that as we get into closing ceremonies and when our park is at its peak it's
going to be looking its best got it and this is for I I know nothing about mulching gardening this is for the landscaping around the park correct so the mulching itself helps with maintaining moisture within the soil beds it helps with also deterring weeds
so there's it's not just the aesthetics which is probably the most visual thing you'll see but there's a lot of aggronomics behind why people tend to mulch and these two parks haven't been mulched in the last year or last 6 months i'd have to take a look i want to say we mulched at the end of last fiscal
year okay all right thank you any other discussion any other discussion uh Madame Clerk please call the role and council member Cuadra Garcia just to clarify I heard the your question but I want to make sure you're
proposing to eliminate number seven on the list yes which is the mulch for MLOP but did you add as well the number 12 which is the mulch in Royal Oaks Park or you only mentioned both of them okay so yes seven and 12 yeah okay that that was
his motion okay so on that motion council member Oh and who seconded this motion councilman Garcia for discussion thank you council member Garcia no council member Hzburg no council member
Sanchez no council member Cuadra Garcia wouldn't say no what are we talking about voting against your item to eliminate items seven and 12 i am voting uh to eliminate it so you're you would be yes yes that is correct that's a yes
council member Fernandez no vice Mayor Mora he's absent oh absent mayor Diegas no the motion passes no the the motion fails
it's not yeah well yeah the the item was to eliminate so yeah uh Councilman Cuad Garcia next next U motion and let's also uh talk a little bit about uh item number line item number 13 top dressing can somebody tell
me a little bit about top dressing no top dressing is line 13 yeah so for for purposes of of information he doesn't need to make a motion nobody has to make a motion so you can ask uh staff when you're called upon but just always remember that for discussion on the
merits of the item itself we need a motion to put us in the proper posture jeremy go ahead yes so top dressing is a maintenance practice for mainly athletic fields it can be used in common fields but it's adding and changing the soil profile to the top quadrant usually about an eighth of an inch could be a
little bit further um for purposes of irration for drainage and for actually writing the field of play so the past couple of years we haven't funded it we've been lucky that our fields have held up because we've invested so much over time in air in um top dressing these fields and we did have a pretty
good um porest playing field but over the years of not funding it we're starting to see the impacts of the fields being unleveled um and we're also getting a little bit too organic which means without the soil at the top layer we're getting a lot of muck build up and over time that water isn't penetrating same thing with the air with the air
it's not penetrating to help the roots grow and long-term issues start to see where root growth isn't good the soil and the turf are not holding up to uh to our regular level of play jeremy is that um is that product a synthetic product
is that a sand huh sand is that a sand yeah it's a sand it's an organic product yes and then we can depending on what the soil samples look like we can take a look at if we want to be a little bit more sandy or if we want to be a little more organic so in years past we'll play with either 8020 where you have 80% sand
only 20% organic if we start to get a little too porous and we're moving the water too quickly and it's not staying in the root zone that's where we'll go ahead and put something a little more organic like a 60/40 okay great okay thank you through the chair so basically um well he he's still I think uh yeah
yeah so no no no go ahead finish your uh your your thoughts Mr mayor and council my take on that is to slice it in half the cost okay so Councilman Quad Garcia moves to uh reduce item 13 in half from
its currently allotted 14,700 is there a second i'll second for discussion seconded by Councilman Garcia you're recognized uh for your discussion thank you uh through the mayor um Councilman the the the reason why um you see a wonderful beautiful green field um
that's this doesn't derive from the work you're doing that week or a month before this is work that takes an entire season top dressing allows that field like I said the to have enough uh soil uh to be able to drain correctly um so it won't
lose soil and it will stay it will stay level um so the the results of top you don't see it till next season but if you start eliminating or shortening it then you're asking why are the fields you know why are they uneven or why are they brown or why isn't the grass growing or
why why is uh why is there puddling um this allows the park director and and them to maintain the fields at at the highest level and also it's good for safety too because there's a lot you know you you see divots and things like that and that that evens it out so it it's very good for soccer and football
and baseball because it it avoids injury um so that's why it's something that if you cut in half then you're you're basically cutting in half the areas that they can they can uh uh attend to and keep ma maintained this is a it has to be constant you you pause it and then
the fields will go to you know for the next season they'll look they won't be at at the plane condition and they have to start over again so um that's why cutting it in half will have a lot of detrimental aspects to it as far as the the price is is this a contractor price as well yes sir has the prices gone up
in the last three years same contracted price since we started that uh that agreement and it's all the way to 2028 this Yeah same uh same time span so this is not even subject to inflation we have we have we have locked in a price that's going to be the same price for the contract what six years you said contracts are five years five years okay
i think that's actually pretty good we're getting a good price we we we're not subject to inflation and we have it for the next three years so that's why I think keeping that is very important to keep the parks where that level where they're at that's just my two cents on that through the mayor through the mayor
well do you have a a response to uh Councilman Garcia or I got I got another question well be before we get there mr vice Mayor you're recognized on this uh amendment jeremy just to make sure I have this correct we have another line item somewhere in this budget which is
line item 16 for resolding field two at RO and it's $80,000 correct me if I'm wrong the reason we have to resolve that field is because we failed to do exactly these procedures right i I can't say it's directly correlated but there is an impact to not airrating and not
maintaining the certain maintenance aspects that we've had in our contract so between mulch top dressing and top verticut which I know we haven't gotten to yet we have 26,557 of just general maintenance to avoid an $80,000 onetime impact from residing
correct along that lines yes that thank you anyone else on this item before I go back to Councilman Cuadra Garcia all right Councilman Cuadra Garcia uh you may ask your question thank you Mr mayor
going back to uh uh top dressing how do we arrive at 14,07 how do we get the numbers and where do we get them through the contract so when we went out to bid for the entire maintenance of the park all of these separate line items within the maintenance actions of the
park are defined and every vendor has a chance to put their best price at whatever the quantity is so these quantities are rated at whatever the proposer at that time said that they can do for the duration of the contract so every vendor that had a chance to go up and put their price every line item is
individually addressed okay anything else uh not in support of the item okay so uh with that and Madame Clerk please call the role
so Council Member Garcia the motion is to reduce item E8 the MLOP top dressing in half correct council member Cuadra Garcia just double checking
number eight your motion to confirm cut in half would be fine right the number eight MLOP top dressing so council member Cuadra how do you vote i vote to uh slash it in a half okay so you move yes
council member Fernandez no council member Hersburg no council member Garcia no council member Sanchez no vice Mayor Mora no mayor Diegas no so
the motion fails any other motions Mr cuadra Garcia thank you Councilman Cuadra Garcia yes one more uh Mr mayor uh the uh it's going to be uh the $80,000 for
the the res of field number two one more time I apologize on the new list that I have line item number 16 the parks Royal Oaks Park Res 2 right that is correct for $80,000 and you want to reduce that
eliminate it what do you want to do i'd like to know uh if somebody could tell me a little bit how we arrived at also at $80,000 yes so the the budgeted amount is based off the majority of field 2 not even the entirety of field 2 being holistically
resided um as mentioned over the years of some practices not being performed the field has started to deter and to the point where it is unlevel on multiple fronts so it's not just an an issue of aesthetics it's more so we've lost in some areas the crown which the
crown essentially helps move water off the field and onto the drainage areas that needs to be actually resolded and regraded um the number itself 80,000 is based off of using our quoted price that we have in the contract for the resolding of Seashore Paspalum um and taking a look at the anticipated amounts
that we would have to resod i know it and I would ask that instead my understanding is we've all done our briefings with the manager and again we have a lot of other items we have to get to so I would suggest that instead I move to request um to uh uh reduce it to
half Mr mayor and council okay so with that uh Councilman Garcia moves to reduce uh item what was it again uh 16 um to reduce it by half uh is there a second on that motion seeing none uh the motion dies
for lack of a second is there another mo motion that you would like to make um or do you have any debate on on on the item itself those are the two items that I'll entertain at this juncture you you know everything that I'm bringing to the table you guys are disapproving it so there's no need i move to call the
question if I before we get there one second um Mr attorney just to refresh my memory it's um I'm just now having some human coffee but um with that said the the motion to call the question does not end
debate right it still can be debated itself i just want to make sure okay so with that there's been a motion to Mr attorney or Deputy Attorney yes um so if you do make a motion to end debate the then it requires a vote of twothirds of the council if you obtain a vote of
two-thirds of the council then you go and you you can call the question but there is discussion allowed on the motion uh to call the question no no no it ends debate you have a vote if you have two/3 understood yes but it does require two with that Madam Clerk uh uh please call the role on the question uh
on the motion to call the question council member Sanchez yes council member Hburg yes council member Fernandez yes council member Garcia yes council member Cuadra Garcia yes vice Mayor Mora
yes mayor Diegas yes the motion passes with that um is there a motion on uh or rather uh uh please call the role on the previous question which is uh adoption of a 14A as amended
so the main motion is ordinance in second reading motion to adopt the ordinance as amended yes council member Herszburg yes council member Fernandez yes council
member Sanchez yes council member Garcia yes council member Cuadra Garcia no vice Mayor Morera yes mayor Diegas yes the ordinance in second reading item 14A
passes with that uh we are now on appointments right uh with uh the only appointment that I have is to the elderly affairs committee by myself Mr omar Sepua is he here in the audience i did not see him all right well
congratulations to him on being appointed uh we're now moving to uh the manager's reports mr mayor uh Councilman Herszburg just a one point of personal privilege regarding uh the pickle balls a pickle ball court um if you don't
mind please okay um the action they took getting everybody here it was impressive i was on the line on this pickle ball thing i spoke about it last time bringing people to town hall works i I ran on it i talk about it so thank you for the efforts for bringing people here it actually works i was on the line so I
appreciate it thank you mr major you're recognized for your report good evening Mr mayor Town Council Mr manager Madame Clerk and the town residents uh my name is Jose Gonzalez i am town police major and I'm giving the
police report for the month of March um as far as the uh crime statistics um we are down 66% versus last year this time for the last three months significantly with decrease in uh grand thefts of 21 uh which is 77% and autothefts are down 12
which is 52% decrease in autothefts um we continue with the minimum staffing during the midnights and the the enhanced activities of uh police presence and undercover surveillance details which has obviously shown to be very fruitful with the the low the low crime that we're experiencing we've also
continued with our traffic enforcement um we uh conducted uh 87 hours of traffic enforcement during the month of March wrote 341 written citations and 192 written warnings um we also had three significant arrests
uh for vehicle burglaries um with three different individuals that were caught in the month of March with our detectives doing some great police work and investigative work which led to the apprehension of three subjects which has uh led to a very decreased number
for at least carrying into April for the 15 days in we've only had one vehicle burglary in the whole town of the town Ammy Lakes so that's a great uh great success story uh we we just finished up the autism bike ride and we uh assisted with the Brianna Oera run it was very successful uh everybody had a great time
and it was a safe event for everybody um and with that I'll just open up for any questions any questions comments from the chair the vice mayor council member Fernandez you are recognized do you Thank you thank you like always thank you for all the work that you guys do
the entire force um do you have ever a a stat statistic as to how many folks challenge uh traffic tickets so is there like a number that we can expect yeah really i don't know if we would have to look that up because that would be through the the clerk's office because
once we we write them they're gone to the clerk and then the individuals obviously allowed to challenge a ticket through the court so we would either have to It's hard to tell the amount of tickets and sometimes they get multiple tickets so it might just be one ticket out of three that they write it's I mean
I I I haven't been requested that in the past but I could look it in for look it in for you of course of course and one thing I did leave out I'm sorry uh is that I know the mayor just stepped out for a second but just to update you guys on the traffic issue i'm sorry i apologize that I I I missed out on that i don't want to get around that but we
have been working we have met with them i finally got in contact with the team who's actively making the adjustments to the lights um last week on Thursday kind of told them that we need to get this going now that we're finally um linked up and uh they were on board the 100%
they were looking at all the suggested changes and they called they actually wrote me an email this morning saying that hey look we uh implemented some changes that we're going to look at obviously it's going to need some tweaking obviously you saw some negative effects but I think there's going to always be some sort of negative effect
before things get better hopefully soon sooner than later so tomorrow morning I will be following up with them with my observations this afternoon with some suggestions how they things mix better and like the mayor said we're going to it's going to take a couple days to tweak things out to get it to a fine tune um and uh with that said I'm sorry
I'll back up the questions council member Garcia thank you uh Vice Mayor just this is incredible so year to year from last time this year we're down 66% in crime is that what you're telling that's an amazing statistic that is
incredible u I mean honestly I I don't think this town's ever been safer in its history so thank you so much i appreciate that thank you very much vice Mayor can I just piggyback on something that council member Garcia just touched on because I think that the major to his credit doesn't want to brag about his
troops right uh but these guys do a yman's job and you know the last couple years we've had some issues right and then they buckled up and they attacked those issues with the overnight autotheft details with more enforcement with integrating technology with the
LPRs i mean and the the work that his guys and ladies ladies and men and women have done is incredible if you look at the two glaring statistics right lararseny during the same time period last year were 27 they're down to six autothefts which were a big deal
here from the same time period were 23 were more than cut in half so the the efforts the the funding that this council has approved for the overnight for the autotheft details the efforts of the men and women from our u our police
department and the integration of technology the plan is working and the efforts are to be commended through the chair council member Garcia to add on that as far as the overtime budget and thing how are we there with with funding
and uh is do you need uh extra any funds where are we with the we funded for the year right we fully funded this year and we didn't do last year that we had at this point last year we had to reallocate this year you fully funded the overtime and their plan it was put to work and they continue to put it to
work and and it's showing results incredible results thank you so much appreciate that any other comments questions from the council on behalf of the mayor and the council a phenomenal job as always thank you yep
moving on to the infrastructure report director Santos good evening Mayor and Council want to highlight two important milestones that we have reached for the Northwest 59th Avenue project one of those is the building is now vacant and we're moving
on to the next phase and the survey for the design revision has been completed in addition to that we continue doing our regular maintenance activities sidewalks and roadway repairs and with some of the fundings that was approved today we'll continue doing that and I'll
open up for questions now any questions or comments from the council i have one uh council member Sanchez you are recognized how's it going with the search for the new vendor to do the sidewalk repair that we're finalizing
the the bid document okay and we should solicit before the end of April okay so after that it's a 30-day period so by May we should get our bids okay so right now all sidewalk repair is on hold no we we we're still using the the Yes yes
okay slower pace okay yeah we're not stopping okay all right thank you through the vice mayor council member Cuadra Garcia you're recognized thanks sir um I don't know if I heard Omar say the uh the studies back on the canal was
was that one of them no the phase one yes so phase one we received the draft inspection report last week we're currently reviewing that it's quite extensive at the same time that we're reviewing the engineering company that
that is our prime consultant they're preparing the engineering report which will include their opinion and recommendations for mitigation okay thank you any other comments questions from the council seeing none I I'll just actually
I have two points uh one um on behalf of I'm sure every councilman can we set up something where we get to like take sledgehammers to the 59th Avenue building cuz that would be awesome we'll talk to our insurance people first uh and then uh the other one is at the
bottom of the report uh you typically include the kind of the summary of completed maintenance activities for example the sidewalks uh 1,59 square yards of replacement completed it would be useful if it included like a time frame like is that
in this fiscal year this calendar year you know that's as of the end of last month as of what as of uh end of March so in one month in one month 1500 no no no this is from October from the start of the fiscal year to the end of the
previous month right okay got it so every time I report is to the end of the previous month yeah and then the same applies for the roadway repairs the sidewalk pressure cleaning every single number there is for this fiscal year up to where where it says completed you could put like a little parenthesis saying from beginning of last fiscal
year through um you know just for for us to be able to kind of put it into um context as to how much is you know whether it's actually a lot or a little um and that's that's it and then I yield back to the mayor anything
else of the public works director okay thank you Omar you're welcome before we move on to item 8 C um I I'm going to move to reopen the order of business um to move a couple items uh um you know to get some residents out of
here at their request um is there a second second excellent and I'd like to move the next item uh item 10 and 16 oh excuse me i didn't realize my mic was off my motion
is to u uh take up next item 10A and 16D which was previously combined um we'll take that up next that way uh uh the the committee chair can get out of here and then also uh for a couple other people that are here on some items in consent uh to move up the consent calendar to
right after uh those two items are taken up uh that that is my motion is there a second second second vote on the uh on the uh on the reopening of the agenda is all those in favor say I i all oppose no the item passes and now with the the motion about
the the the next item to take up all those in favor say I i all oppose no the eyes have the mo the agenda's uh amended madam chair please come up vivian
perfect chair uh Levy please proceed oh okay no it's on good evening my name is Vivian Levy i'm the chair of the Special Needs Advisory Board i'm here tonight to recommend that the town partner with the Demoya
Foundation to provide employment opportunities to individuals with unique abilities this initiative aligns with our commitment to being a model town for inclusion the Demoa Foundation is dedicated to empowering individuals with
disabilities by providing employment opportunities and support by collaborating with the foundation the town can demonstrate leadership in fostering an inclusive community and contribute to the economic independence of individuals with unique
abilities i'm also here as a mom of an autistic adult and uh I often wonder you know what is his future going to look like what kind of opportunities is he going to have in the future um as I'm
sure all parents do uh but when it comes to uh a child with special needs you you worry just a little bit more uh what's what's out there for them so
um I'm going to introduce um George uh Demoya from the Demoya Foundation so he can describe um the program uh a little bit and uh should I show the video now i'll talk first okay all right so come
on up George hi George hello everybody um good evening thank you very much for your time and um I first want to recognize I'm also an older sibling of a young adult with developmental disabilities uh
this organization started 8 to nine years ago and it was started because of my mother my mother is a tremendous mom uh just like Vivian and a advocate for young adults with special needs uh at the age of 22 the services completely
fall off when it comes to any kind of service whether it's resume building mock interview skills or just job placement overall um many young adults with autism developmental disability cerebral palsy etc they can get a job on
their own but they can't keep that job the long-term employment solutions are not there and that is where the De Moya Foundation kicks in we provide job coaching all the way up to five six plus years down the line it doesn't matter
how much support they need we are there with them our job coaches are there for the first three full weeks of employment for 20 hours a week and they will slowly taper off on top of that we provide educationbased training disability sensitivity training to all the
co-workers that are also at the company so they are supported just as much as the young adults are supported our program is dedicated to creating these long-term employment solutions because at the end of the day we need to find a
way to have a community of people that are supporting these young adults when our parents are no longer here probably one of the scariest thing my mom has ever had to say when it comes to creating this program is what is gonna happen to her younger son when she's no
longer here and how can I put that solely on my oldest son of course I would always be there for him regardless but now he has a community of individuals who think like him that are part of his community that go to the M
games travel around go play golf over at Miami Lakes that are a part of his own support system uh we have partnered with companies um throughout Miami Dade and if the town of Miami Lakes can get behind this particular partnership you
could be on the forefront of more towns getting involved we have partnered with 85 different companies including Pinerest Bakery Baptist Health um we have a tremendous uh collaboration with Trace Cottage who is here in Miami Lakes
and we also support 13A um by having 85 different employer partners we have been able to hire 154 young adults that are getting paid livable
wages and they are now taking that money and putting it back into their communities when we took that number and expounded it throughout the entire Miami Day they're putting $3.2 million of private wages back into the community
that is astounding on top of that in a threeb block radius there are five candidates on our 80 plus candidate waiting list that are right here close to this center that are waiting for a
job that are looking for a job that have office skill-based and if you partner with us trust me when I tell you this it will make an immediate impact on the community here so thank you very much for your time i'm also available to
answer any kind of questions that you may have and I hope you enjoy the video that we have set up for you thank you before we go to the vice mayor's motion I let's watch the video and and then I'll turn it back over for any questions that the council may have generally for either
cuz before I was working a part-time job at a grocery store and my heart wasn't in there i needed more to do with my life since I never worked before and I was worried that my autism would get me
rejected it's tremendous to have someone that has your back when you have those little flaws where other people wouldn't give you chances but with them you be able to actually see that you know in the end we're all human i came back and I got the job interview and I did
perfect i I came polite i came honest and I came truthful and I came in a big smile and told myself I'm a superstar when I was not with a job I was like very lowkey down but now I'm like
getting my confident and my self-esteem for starters I the word developmental disability sounds more like something that will pull you back and more like chains let's say that but I believe that
word won't put me down i believe it encourages us knowing that our own uniqueness have our own talents and with those talents we can either use them for the job that we have or something that
we plan on our own future and more likely that word will empower us all we help people to find a better
job and we help the kids to find what they want what job they want to do being human means being different and being different is a beautiful thing the
Demoa Foundation exists to give young adults with developmental disabilities the employment opportunities they deserve through constant communication and support we provide long-term partnerships that benefit both the
employee and the employer we bring trustworthiness reliability and attention to detail at every workplace we employ a young adult may it be a hardworking small business
or a well-renowned company the Demoa Foundation is using jobs to teach young adults to step out of the box and be the best version of themselves to be fearless while letting their true colors shine through together
we are different [Music] because of you I now have a career that I'm very uh passionate about because of you I liter I went from a literal 180 on my
life i I almost believe no one was willing to give me a chance but I'm so glad you proved me wrong because of you I'm not only able to feel like I can actually do something to support my family but I'm
also able to show that you know because of what I have it doesn't make me different from anyone else you know and I'm really glad to have given the chance to show that I can thrive in any situation that you know anyone can throw at me because of
you I understand how to stay focused i understand how to um to move forward i understand how to run and get where I need to get and I
um I thank you for help me and teach me the ropes and the skills how to climb the ladders and I thank you to make me to be be a better person because of you I made new friends and I love my
job so thank you because of you those with unique abilities within this world can help you achieve greater things and help those achieve more
greater things because if we all work together by helping the De Moa Foundation we will all have a better tomorrow [Music] [Applause]
any questions that you all may have council open to answering okay and before again we move on to uh the motion is there anything else madame uh chair that you want to add to your report i think in so many issues we've led by
example um and I think this is one of them that we really um should consider um you're changing people's lives you're changing famil family's lives you know it's not just the person that's going to be employed but their
family vice Mayor Mora thank you Mr mayor um it's not often that I enjoy having uh the thunder taken out uh from from you know having somebody steal my thunder
but uh you know in this case I'll make an exception uh you did a hell of a job of stealing my thunder and and deservedly so um it if the budget item deserved to be on page 666 this one deserved to be on 777
um so this came about because I I number one I let me preface this by saying I'm incredibly proud of you Vivian um you know I appointed you not too long ago and you've climbed your way up to to
obviously impressing your peers on the committee and and being selected as as the chair um so hats off to you you're doing a phenomenal job i think that the special needs advisory board frankly when the last chair left there was some questions as to hey is it going to
survive because some of these committees they're very dependent on specific individuals you showed that that's not the case that this committee is just as strong as ever and if not stronger so uh you've done a phenomenal job um this came about because you know we keep
attending a lot of these events um we just had Arts for Autism we we had uh the the the talent show what was the one that we went to together where we got the massage oh yeah that was the Arts for That was Arts for Autism but just for just to be careful with the phrasing
I just want to be clear that it was a a school from Hollywood that was giving free massage to everybody on a chair right there everything was above board they just wanted to clarify that what what a typical attorney um and as I'm attending all
these events I realize they're all tailored to to children which is phenomenal we should do that we should continue doing that relax and but yet there there weren't that many programs for the adults the the
adults with special needs and especially the young adults who are transitioning into this world of needing to become now part of society and they want nothing more than to contribute to their families and to their um uh to their
society um and then growing up uh there was um I I don't recall his name there was a gentleman that worked at the Publix right here uh on Eagles Nest um who had special needs who worked as a as their uh bag and Mario thank you um he
see community staple we all knew who he was because he was so friendly had such great demeanor great customer service um and just really loved his job um and I said "Man we should be providing this opportunity to more people." And then I
I started racking my head and then I said "I'm an idiot why am I racking my head i have a phenomenal resource right here." And I reached out to Vivian and she instantly the Demo Foundation she said "That's the people that we need to talk to." Um just to get us into the
proper posture I'll go ahead and uh make my my first of two motions which is I'm asking my colleagues to support partnering with a nonprofit organization such as the De Moya Foundation to host a special needs job interview and skills seminar at town hall which would equip
those with special needs with the skills and confidence that they need to land a job and excel and to then excel in that job second it's been moved and seconded any discussion any questions seeing none all those in favor say I i i no you guys have it the motion carries
mr vice Mayor your second motion thank you the second motion is actually to create some form of platform or to gauge uh the interest in the from the council so that I can then sit with uh Clarisel
on creating some form of platform on our town website what the best way of going about it is uh where employers can advertise job openings suitable for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities andor where res or residents with special needs uh
can publish their resumes bios and skill sets so that employers uh who are looking to hire can find them just to make sure I I'm I'm clear the motion is just basically to give staff direction to go ahead and start working on this uh this registry it it's primarily to Yes uh so that I can work with them on
figuring out the best way of going about it okay but yeah all those in any discussion any questions okay seeing none all those in favor say I i i all oppose no the eyes have it the motion carries thank you guys very much thank you for your time thank you thank you
now we are on uh item 12 the consent calendar pursuant to the previous amendment to the order of bis business is there a motion on the consent calendar i'll move it second moved and seconded uh all those in favor say I i oppose no the eyes have
it the consent calendar is passed and now we are back on item 8C regarding uh foreclos foreclosing on of non-homestead properties with code enforcement leans by Mr peterman mr manager you're recognized yes the this is a joint item between us
and the town attorney uh so it's the manager and the attorney we just put it under the manager's report this is an initiative that we started uh and you heard Miss Centron refer to it it was a an an objective to improve the quality
of code enforcement and the effectiveness of code enforcement our code enforcement officers do a phenomenal job going out there and identifying the infractions but there are uh folks and when I first got here I was told uh at that time the opinion was
that we could not foreclose on code enforcement leans when we started uh looking at the statute the statute actually only protects homesteaded u property so those properties where the owners live in the property all
commercial and industrial property any residential that may be used as a rental property or short-term rental or what have you so any residential property that's not homesteaded is also subject to foreclosure on code enforcement leans so we went through an entire process we
identified 124 uh properties that had outstanding code enforcement leans and when I say code enforcement leans that means they've already gone through the entire process they were warned they didn't do anything they were sided didn't do anything they had an opportunity to go before the special magistrate didn't appeal didn't do
anything so they finally progressed to the point where they had a lean put on the property but they those leans sat there for months sometimes sometimes even years so we went through we sent them a notice and advised all of those property owners that we were going to
eventually take the measure of foreclosing on their property if they did not bring the property into compliance first and foremost and then come in to cure the lean of the 124 54 of those uh properties were uh cured so
the they came in the the there was really effective just the notice they came in the the whatever infraction was uh being done they were cured they came in they paid off whatever they had to pay off but there are still 70
outstanding so what we want to do is uh get direction from this council there's a couple administrative measures that we first have to take after we get approval from this council or direction from this council one would be to do a full legal assessment when we identified these
properties months have passed since then right so some of these they may have gone the transfer of ownership there's some changes that may have happened so we want to do a complete analysis and make sure that these properties are still in the same state as they were
when we put them on the list so we want to move forward do a title search and so forth and then once that's h that happens and we confirm that there are still properties whether it's 70 or fewer that are still in this predicament
we will send them a final 15-day letter with a copy of the foreclosure uh lawsuit saying you have 15 days to come in and make this make this right if not we're moving forward with the filing of
the of the uh lawsuit to foreclose on your property and all of these properties are either commercial or industrial or like I said nonhomesteaded residential so what we want is direction from this council to move forward i don't know if Rel wants to add yeah let I'm going to reiterate and be a little
bit repetitive you have to understand first of all these are not homes we're not taking people's homes i have a big disagreement on on the statute itself because we've got homeowners in Miami Lakes who've literally put up stuff and said "You know what i don't care the maximum fine
is $10,000 you can't foreclose on me the day I go to sell the house then maybe I'll pay I'll pay the fine." We've got people that have actually are actually doing that but these are not those cases these are businesses who've decided to operate their property as a business and
are not uh complying with the code and it's any number of different violations some are building without a permit some are just not maintenance and the way we get to the amount differs per property they have gotten notices many
of them got a warning then they got a citation they didn't they did or did not come to the hearing where the where the hearing was held they didn't uh they got notice uh they had the opportunity to
appeal then we put a lean on their property they got notice of every single step along the way u you know to me code enforcement is extremely important in this town we live in Miami
Lakes for court enforcement i am not in the business of wanting to take anybody's property away or anything like that um we have to do the title search because some of them may have been foreclosed on uh I need to know who actually owns the property right now um
some of them have changed hands uh without us knowing it uh some people have have actually done closings even though the lean is on there and overlooked it it could be any number of of issues um and we also want to make sure that they're not homestead
property um one of the things we'll check on are they getting a homestead exemption if it's an LLC or an INC obviously those are not homestead properties they can't be under Florida law um the other thing is look if we decide to go forward and this has been
important to me this is the one hesitation I have about doing this there's going to come a time when it's going to be a business owner that one or more of you know and maybe someone who is active in the town and contributes
and is you know a good citizen otherwise and we're going to be in the process of foreclosing and we're going to pay 5004 to $500 in filing fees probably $50 to $100 in service process we're going to
pay for the title search is I I got a check somewhere between 150 and 250 bucks um and I what I typically get is a what we call a foreclosure commitment where the the fund tells me what what and how and what I need to do
to foreclose um so we're probably talking $1,000 in costs uh depending on the nature of the of the case you know taking it through to foreclosure as long as they don't fight it Capri probably another couple of
grand at 200 bucks an hour maybe more there's going to come a point in time if you tell us to do this at $200 an hour what I don't want to hear is "Hey cut your fee," or "Hey cut the costs." That's going to be a problem for us and
I don't want to see that happen so we're either all in or we're not now what happens on August 1st august 1st some of the stuff changes right yeah because this is a a two hit approach right one of the approaches was this council right this
council approved back before just before the end of the calendar year was a modification to the lean reduction schedule right and that there's a line in the sand that they have to anybody with an outstanding lean whether they
are a uh homesteaded property or not they all have uh until the end of July to come in and u modify and comply and bring the property into compliance and uh reduce their uh fine reduction or
request a fine reduction under the current uh formula which is a lot more beneficial than the new one that was approved by the council to go into effect as of August 1st so between this these measures that we're taking here
which are strictly for non-h homesteaded properties and the fine reduction schedule changes that the council approved which apply to all properties those two are we're hope and I want to repeat something that that Raul said or Mr castesi said "We do not want to be
property owners we don't want to be property owners or property managers we don't want these properties we want these properties for the sake of the neighborhoods." Imagine if one of these blighted properties was the house right next to yours we want these properties to be brought into compliance and and
and and be you know reflective the Miami Lakes way and that's what we want to do there are two things that I don't like about this job this is the second one now the first one was discussing legal strategy up here i that's something that I always complain about that's not something I like to do and I'm not used
to doing it the second one now is starting to foreclose on these leans but it's got in my humble opinion it should be done so with that is there a motion i'll make the motion it's been moved by Council Member Fernandez is there a second for discussion i'll second seconded by Councilman Herszburg for
discussion so we'll begin with Councilman Hsburg pardon me Fernandez and then move to Councilman Herszburg i mean this is this is right up my alley i I I ran on on code enforcement and I was so happy to see uh our former council woman Ruano when she changed when when
this council before before many of us were here but they they changed that the schedule where they're no longer allowed to get and it's all about getting them to comply right that's the only that's that's the goal is getting folks to comply that are out of compliance and I think if this is another tool in our
toolbox I'm I'm all for it that's all I have to say councilman Harrisburg thank you Mr mayor uh I'm also pro using the tools that we have to use our code enforcement tool one first question have we ever filed a foreclosure as a town before no sir not
that I know of not that I can recall i don't think I don't think we got to the point of a foreclosure you're talking the one with the pot yeah marijuana i don't think we ever got to the foreclosure part oh I don't remember doing that we were building up to it oh no i was We were got real close okay okay to the
mold on Lettersburg finish so um yeah I reviewed the list last night there are homestead properties on that list i understand that's a working list i trust you guys will do the work correctly you guys are are fantastic attorneys what my ask and and I let me amend the motion i
think any case you file should come back to us if it's the first time we're doing it first I don't believe I think there's a good chance you're not gonna file any cases okay i hope so i hope so goodness I hope so i I I don't This is And why I want this and I understand it seems like
maybe micromanaging from the council can I just clarify something you're You're saying file them and come back no I'm saying proceed with doing your due diligence sending the 15-day notice okay putting doing the draft complaint i agree it's a good way to show that
you're real now unfortunately it would be a slight delay the reason I The reason I would like this is it's the first time that's fine it's an action we haven't taken before and if I don't think you're going to mess up but if you do it's on us
right i think if if this is something we're doing I'm not saying this would be the new process i'm saying once you do your due diligence and try to get compliance hopefully you come back to us and say you know what we're good and I think there's a good chance of that but if there is three four seven whatever it is I think we should have an opportunity
to look at those violations look at those properties and determine if we as a body believe that our town should start filing foreclosure actions for the first time so that would be I guess an amendment uh to the main motion i guarantee you that one of the ones that we foreclose on will be someone I know
do you really think I want to do Latin American church blah blah blah we have we still have a lot that we got to get through so uh let's there's an amendment that's been profered uh to require that uh prior to filing that it comes back to
us one more time uh on a regular basis is there a second i'll second okay is there any uh discussion on the amendment so I I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest that uh the compromise there because to have to vote each time I think it's going to be
a lot like how about Okay so maybe we're we're thinking the same thing where it's just a list in the attorney's report that hey these are the homes we're going to move forward on in the next month or so right and then that would be our point oh yeah so just something that brings it back to us because if it goes
haywire it's on us as I mean you know obviously it's on the attorneys too but it's on us so I would just and honestly this might be a a one-time thing we can go back to it but because it's the first time we're thinking about doing it I think it should come back to us first that's all I'm saying okay okay uh Okay
so I'm fine with the way you're saying okay well yeah well then uh I guess that's sufficient direction then for the attorneys all those in favor say I i i all oppose no you guys have it the amendment uh uh passes uh anything else Councilman Hzburg that's it thank you ma'am okay councilman Guad Garcia uh
thank you Mr mayor does that apply also to commercial property or is this just strictly this is only residential commercial industrial and residential properties that are not someone's homestead okay anything that is not homestead okay uh we had uh stated uh
and correct me if I'm wrong that we have not ever foreclosed on any property that we know of do does anybody recall advanced auto part the advanced auto part we was kind of like a test pilot right it was a test case we sent an
initial letter they will review them as as I'm not sure if they are in here if they came in ever to uh fix and cure any leans that they had outstanding um but I'll I'll look to I'll verify whether they are one of the 70 on this list or maybe one of the 54 that came in after
we sent the initial letter i'll I'll verify that and I'll let you know okay thank you Mr manager they are on the list i remember seeing them there's a there's a few large corporations still on that list too anything else councilman Cuadra Garcia none okay anybody else
mr vice Mayor uh just wanted to confirm so the administrative stuff leading up to uh you guys uh uh determining this is definitely a homestead property is that something that's covered under the general items that are under the
contract that we have with the firm or is that something that would be hourly like litigation no this is litigation this is hourly some of them are going to fight prelit okay so if your investigation were to reveal that the property is in fact homesteaded and we
cannot proceed we have to eat that cost right no I'm not going to Hold on i'm not going to boo you for the time okay just the cost just just costs on on that item if one comes back you know I ordered a T first of all what we're going to do is we're the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look
through the property appraisers website which I got the feeling is what Councilman Hsburg did um and and verify those uh anything that's owned by like I said earlier anything owned by an LLC or an Inc or whatever I'm not gonna I'm obviously that's not Homestead the ones
that are I'll try and look into it a little better uh if I can't tell but if if it comes up later on that somebody pleads a homestead defense or something like that you know if we're in litigation and it came up and then we had to litigate over the issue that's
one thing but if something that was obvious from the beginning I'm not going to bill for my time and then just as a follow-up I know that it's written down on on the memo but just for anyone that doesn't have the paperwork in front of them and anyone at home we are moving to recover attorney's fees and costs on all
of these this does end up being free to the town and and interest etc thank you anything else on on uh on this all right so I'll close just by saying that I support this item it's not something I do lightly but this is as uh Councilman
Fernandez said expounding on the efforts that myself the vice mayor and and former council members and Ruano uh were pushing toward the end of last year which was to really get back to basics when it comes to the town making sure that we you know some people find it a
little you know a little too much at times they may criticize as being snobby but we do take pride in our appearance the fact that we are a very rules-driven community uh with a higher standard than many others so um and again as the manager and the attorney uh went into we
have given these property owners multiple times uh many opportunities over many uh uh years uh even to go ahead and come into compliance and some of them are still not going to and even if we initiate the foreclosure for the benefit of of the public out there that
is exactly what the trial is for an additional step of due process where they will have an opportunity to show either why our records are wrong right and maybe they had satisfied the lean or they did comply and there was something that was missed um or otherwise to go ahead and and settle the case at a later
time if they so choose so there this is not the the end and and the the the property owners will later have the ability to go ahead and further defend their rights if they so choose or to go ahead and settle with the town if they so choose so I'm fine with that with with that said Madame Clerk please call
the role so item 8 C Council Member Fernandez yes council member Hzburg yes council member Garcia yes council member Cuadra Garcia
yes council member Sanchez yes vice Mayor Mora yes mayor Diegas yes the motion passes item 8 excellent item 8D tax collector legal action mr manager you're recognized yes Mayor the this
item we had it on the agenda prior to receiving a letter from the uh tax collector's office uh late last week the reason we did not pull this from the agenda is that the way the letter was couched was we believe that he is not
acquiescing to the fact that he is not able to charge this commission to municipalities he just claims that it's for financial reasons that he doesn't necessarily need the municipal uh contribution in his to fund his office so we'd like uh direction from this
council that if that position changes whether it's this fiscal year in during this process or in subsequent uh fiscal years that we have direction to move forward with the legal steps necessary to uh enforce the uh state statute as well as the attorney general's opinion
that is as old as 1973 that states that municipality should not be charged this commission our firm if I may go ahead Mr attorney yeah um our firm has taken a pretty lead role in this issue for obviously for the city and another city
the reason we want this direction is because we may have to move quickly depending on when he does something like this if he does it too late in the game or something like that we don't want to do the old emergency executive session special call all that stuff
um I just I we were in shock that he would try and pull something like this uh we were supporters of his and we're not happy with him right now uh and you know we want him to know if he changes his mind or deviates off of off of off
of this that we are ready because this is completely unfair what he was trying to do yeah mayor Mayor to reinforce what the town attorney has just stated is the way this process works is not that we would get the money and then he would say "Hey I'm going to charge you." And then he
he'd send us a bill for the money he collects the money so n possession is 9/10en of the law so he would just withhold the money and then we would by surprise we would be short on what expected tax revenues exactly he he would pull the money you've budgeted
police everything you've budgeted and now all of a sudden we're out this commission what do you do that's the problem that's why we want to make sure that if he even reconsiders this he is on notice that we are going full steam ahead right
okay is I believe uh the vice mayor was going to make a motion on this i move to adopt the manager's recommendation is there a second second i'll second i'm sorry who was second oh sorry councilman Sanchez uh any discussion on this councilman Guad Garcia and then I think
I saw Councilman Garcia also uh choosing to go ahead through the mayor and through the manager and to attorney wouldn't this be uh double dipping i'm sorry wouldn't this be double dipping our view is that it's double dipping right that he's already getting a budget
for conducting the operations that he needs to conduct and that the 2% that he was trying to collect from us would be uh way above what he's entitled to collect right because he's allowed our interpretation is that he's allowed to collect that from the school board and
from uh the county based on an attorney general's opinion right and and but not from cities that we are not subject to uh his ability to impose that fee right with that said uh they want to basically be uh not only preemptive but also you
know trying to get ahead of any issues right and uh and try to you know ensure that this doesn't come back uh later on so fair thank you mayor for clarification sake for the public the the the entity that we oversee that may
be subject to this commission is our special taxing districts oh okay yes right because it's counties special districts and special assessment districts and I believe that the special taxing districts would qualify as one of in that definition so we'll double check
that themselves are are but the municipalities are definitely not to be charged and that's the line share of our concern councilman Garcia thank you Mayor so I just want to clarify so our T neighborhood testing districts they are if if he decides to
do this uh they may be we I want to verify that so I want to make sure that that's on the record so everybody's aware we'll double check that and we'll work with the attorney's office to verify that because the definition says counties special districts that's why the school board pays and special
assessment districts and I'd have to we have to double check to make sure to see if our special taxing districts qualify as a special assessment district absolutely because it'll be special assessment district may only be the districts that are imposed on people not
the ones that they voluntarily take on like for for a purpose like a special taxing district that may be different we got to double check and and do a little bit of research and see whether that qualifies or not absolutely because that would be incredibly unfair if that's the case to our residents in the special taxing district thank you it wouldn't be all of their taxes it would only be that
that portion that is the budget for the special taxing district it would not be those people no yeah the advalorum taxes would not qualify just like the rest of course that falls under us yeah it's it's a small amount thank you okay anything else on this item seeing
none all those in favor say I i i post no the eyes have it the item carries um Mr attorney do you have anything uh to report separately please no all right so with that we're on item uh 11 special presentations the presentation of the annual comprehensive financial report
for the fiscal year uh FY of uh 2023 2024 madame uh CFO go ahead k grant finance director for the town of Miami Lakes and CFO and risk manager so
that's a no to 59th uh 5951 building and the sledgehammer that's a no as the risk manager so absolutely not good evening Mr mayor and members of the town council Mr manager my colleagues um
good evening everyone florida statute requires municipalities to complete an independent audit and submit a comprehensive financial report to the state within 9 months following
the end of the fiscal year our independent auditors um Jamari that's Garcia Espinosa Miares Rodriguez SBA and company more than a mouthful they completed the audit in 6 months on
March 28th 2025 and the result of their work and ours is before you right now on the day before you is the 2024 town of Miami Lakes Florida annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year
ended September 30th 2024 um this report it reflects the town's um ongoing transparency uh accountability and the responsible
stewardship of public funds so um you know before I introduce the audit team um to give the highlights of the report um I'd like a few things i'd like to say a few things if I may um first of
all this document will be on the town's website tomorrow for everyone to look through at their convenience i know that a lot of people once they flip through it all they see is numbers and schedules and they get an instant headache don't
worry about it i'm here we're here and through the manager feel free to call you know through the manager and ask us any questions and not just the finance team but also our auditors are here um if you have any questions and again
before I introduce the auditors I'd like to take a moment if I may to acknowledge the many people um who made this report possible mr manager thank you for your support and um letting me do my thing
and for always having an open door thank you very much on that to all the departments um you know your corporation throughout the process is truly appreciated this report preparing it is an extensive it's
an extensive undertaking it took six months six months of hard work countless hours collaboration review analysis so it is truly a team effort and I want to thank all the departments for their
support um a special thank you of course to our budget officer Melissa Hernandez and to our grants and governmental affairs manager uh Olivia Shock she's not here today but she um she did a phenomenal job um on this
report and of course my deepest gratitude goes to the finance department team and that is if I can present them uh Gabriella Escobar or accounts payable
specialist and David Serrano or accountant um this is their first year in another week or so it's going to be their first year uh their oneyear anniversary with the town in the finance department now Gabriella was uh the liaison for special
needs advisory board and mental health task force about two years ago but this is her first time working in the finance department and um they are two of the town's rising
stars if I may say so myself um their enthusiasm their um their sharp minds their willingness to learn their strong work work ethic and their attention to detail was a key
success to this report and to the finance department not only did they assist with the audit but they kept the smooth operation the day the smooth day-to-day operation you know and so our level of service remained
um very high what we're the standard of service that we typically give it remained high even though they were new to the audit um so thanks to Gabby and David for your hard work
um and again thanks to everyone if I missed anyone for their uh contribution to this effort there are two things that I'm really really very proud of that I'd like to share and one is for the ninth consecutive year the audit resulted in
and I know that the audit team will go into it but it take gives me pleasure to say the audit resulted in zero findings there was no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies and we had full compliance across the board that is a
major accomplishment and one that I'm incredibly proud um to share another thing is for the 12th consecutive year um the town was awarded the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial
reporting by the government finance officers association um that's the highest form of recognition for governmental accounting and financial reporting uh we uh that was for the year 2022
2023 we've already submitted this report you know because we want to keep the tradition right so next year I'll be up here saying we have received the award for the 13th consecutive year so I look forward to that anyway tonight we're
joined by the independent auditors uh Jerry Donatis um Francis Cabrera Yak and Mariana Roman um also we had another person on their team Aelia she couldn't be here today but it has been a pleasure
working with with them i know most people don't like to work with auditors but we love ours um and I want to thank them for their professional approach and um their you know high standards in conducting the audit
so let me introduce you again to Jerry Donades he will go through and highlight the major parts of this report thank you thank you K uh good evening Mayor Dieves town council town administration uh
pleasure to be here tonight with you to present the uh a brief summary of the audit results of the fiscal year ended September 30th 2024 uh like K mentioned my name is Jerry Donates i'm one of the audit partners at GMRT um and also Francis Cber is here who was a manager
in charge of the audit and Mariana Roman Roman who was the senior on the engagement um so let's start things off by you know the the title of the report it's the annual comprehensive uh financial report uh it was issued with a date of March 28th
2025 so that allowed the the town to submit its financials to the GFOA which is the uh government finance officers association within the required deadline to be able to receive the uh certificate that K mentioned the opinion in the
report is an unmodified opinion so that means it's a clean opinion that everything in the financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects and there were no material misstatements that were noted we did not uh again as Kay mentioned there were no findings in the report and there are no
material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that were noted in terms of the process of the audit and and the extensive work that we do and we did not encounter any difficulties in completing our procedures and our our testing and analysis and we had no complications in
dealing with management um everyone was available to us as needed ak did a great job and her team in facilitating the audit and and getting us all the information that we needed the town manager made himself available as well uh if if there were any issues or if we
needed any any uh any help from him during the course of the fieldwork there were a couple of adjustments that uh Kay and the finance department provided to us uh that's normal after you know after information is is is uh comes in after year end and and minor
adjustments are posted as far as audit adjustments we had uh a few minor ones just to reclass uh some balances for financial statement preparation uh purposes and then to adjust some of the lease liabilities but the the CFO they
did a great job in giving us the trial balances that were were finalized and adjusted and required minimal minimal adjustments on our end in terms of the fund balance as of the end of the year September 30th 2024 the unassigned fund balance was 5.5 million
approximately which is in compliance with the town's reserves uh policy in returns of the budget overall expenditures uh were within the final budgeted amounts and the revenues and appropriations were sufficient to cover those expenditures during the year the the
town expended uh over $750,000 in federal uh grant funding and it also expended more than $750,000 in state grant funding so those are the thresholds that require a single audit so this year there was actually two there was a federal single audit as well
as a Florida single audit um that was that was required those were carried out in accordance with the uniform guidance for the federal and then uh in accordance with the rules of the Florida Auditor General for the state there were two major programs audited uh for the federal one of them was the state and
local uh fiscal uh recovery funds with the ARPA funds and the other was from the economic development initiative from the department of housing and urban development in addition to those two major programs there were three state projects that were that were audited on the Florida single audit um so it it's a
good sign because it's good that the the town's you know using the uh you know getting the awards and and using the money to to enhance their projects um so so that was good um in terms of the single audits uh there were also no no findings noted with that all the
compliance testing uh was was good uh the opinion on the single audits was also an unmodified opinion everything we we worked closely with the CFO and the grants manager on the single audits again everything we tested everything we requested was given
to us in a timely manner so there were no issues there as well and and that's you know uh it's always important to continue maintaining grant fire grant files uh you know the reporting the maintenance of everything and and the expenditures and and reimbursements and
all that orderly so the CFO and grant manager are doing a great job with that uh that's you know a high level basically overview of the audit just to keep it brief but u again I want to thank uh CFO K Grant uh she's she's you know did a great job once again
facilitating the work between us and our team uh to be able to to to get it together in time and and finish it by by the end of the month of March and um also like I said my team uh Francis for leading the audit and Mariana for
working you know extensively and and our staff also to to get it done in time and um as as as Kay mentioned we're we are available always at any time during the year to try you know answer any questions or help the town in any way in regards to finances and reporting and things like that so thank you very much
any questions from the council through the chair mr uh Councilman Garcia j I want to thank you so much and your team and your staff and and nine years in a row we have zero findings that's just a testament to to the consistency and professionalism of our staff and our town and to the residents that are
listening today i mean these are books right these this is every single penny that comes in and comes out and according to to you and according to to we're following all the rules and regulations we're doing a great job nine years in a row and we're really stewards of taxpayer money and it shows with with
this so I want to thank you again and again the staff and Mr manager kudos to you again sir thank you any additional questions or comments okay uh with that I guess uh I entertain a motion to accept the report
i'll put a second all right it's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I i i oppose no excellent the motion carries report accepted thank you all for your time we're now on item 13A ordinances on first reading mr attorney
an ordinance of the town of An ordinance of the town council of the town of Miami Lakes Florida amending chapter 13 land development code at article 6 supplementary regulations creating section 13-77.1 online sales showrooms providing for findings of fact intent and purpose
providing for regulations providing for penalties providing for repeal of laws in conflict providing for severability providing for inclusion to the code and providing for an effective date with that uh Vice Mayor Moretta you're
recognized thank you Mayor Das uh so this is the item uh several several members of the public came uh to discuss this item and in support of this item you may recall this is the item that I brought a few months ago with regard to
I think at the time I called it limited retail um uh what was ultimately passed on the dis was for me to sit down with our staff and have a discussion on on how we could best go about this uh after sitting with Susanna and with uh uh
Danny Angel uh we came up with uh the framework that's currently before you uh which creates this uh online sales showroom/modified retail uh category um and inputs it into uh the the
appropriate uh sections of the business commercial and industrial master use list so this is essentially implementing what was already agreed was a a good idea um but is simply uh uh now just being implemented and uh obviously it would still require a second reading but
I would ask the council to uh adopt it however uh did you want to clarify the the little minor changes that needed to be made on the so just one minor change and just so there's no confusing uh on the
chart that you have before you it shows that it's an accessory use and it's accessory yes but it's accessory conditional so there there will be uh just clarification on that point so that he's referring to page 661 uh
the third row where it says commercial and retail activities rather than showing the A um wherever it says A it would actually be a C correct oh okay uh it was just a a typo
is there a second second seconded by uh Councilman Fernandez is there discussion or debate on it on this um I do have uh some questions because I had a little bit of a trunk truncated meeting with the manager the what is the threshold finally on um the amount of sales permit
at the site there so because it would be very difficult Hi Susan Alonso planning department sorry uh good evening uh because it would be difficult for us to monitor and and sort of um keep track of that without like asking for sales
reports at the end of the year and stuff like that we chose not to add any minimum sales or anything like that so it's basically not a retail store this is a a store where all sales are still conducted online so there's no retail sales on the floor so this is not this
is not a retail as a retail would be so okay so just just to clarify then it's no longer not even just limited retail it's just purely showroom but we're not going to be monitoring in in that way um basically this is a place that you're coming in uh with an appointment of some
sort it's not going to be used by people that are walking by it's going to be interior to the building with no signage outside right so it's it's meant to be something that you access through personal knowledge of whoever it is that
is opening the door for you and letting you in and then how the transaction actually happens is not something we are able to monitor yeah and I'm I'm going to vote to advance this but again I just want to reiterate and and I'm actually glad it came out in our uh agenda briefing that I had with the manager and
with the attorney that it that it actually should have been marked as a conditional use for those who are newer uh up here obviously that gives us more flexibility because with the conditional use you know they have to come back and constantly get renewed they don't not automatically entitled to it so for whatever reason if it later comes out
that they are not complying with the requirements here then we can always yank the the approval correct so and that makes me feel a little better because it what I don't want to do is in these office districts now basically open a back door for all sorts of uh retail businesses to proliferate and
change the character of of those districts right because there's a reason why we haven't organized uh zoning uh um you know a uh scheme in the town right between the a certain amount of uses that are permitted and where you can do them and it's all you know it's it's for
a purpose right so I I didn't want to disrupt that with that I'm going to I'm going to advance it but I just I needed the answer to that question and also this doesn't trigger a change of use which going full retail would trigger a change of use which would trigger building permitting requirements that
then change a lot of the geometry of where bathrooms need to be where exit needs to be that the storage of items this this does not trigger a change of use per the building department and that's also important to be able to keep it as a conditional use as continuing to be an office
use that is by appointment only interior to the building so that's why if you see the actual text and yes the first the first line is is a proof does a minor conditional use yeah and again especially you know on in some of the
streets that are in this district like mine right like my street is with within one of these districts um so I'm I'm just want to make sure that we're not going to compound the issues that are already taking place there so um with that I'm going to move to support it is there any other debate or or uh Councilman Hsburg thank you Mr mayor and
your thoughts took me to is I mean the way it's written right now it does say and whether the showroom may accept walk-in customers so is that something that we determine if they may or may not and if so how do we how's that determination made because then we'll say some can and some can't is that an
issue for us so the way conditional uses work is they're basically individually and you're going to see one today uh the one that you're seeing today it's unrelated it's a different matter and uh you know it's for many of you is your first so we get to like
discuss this twice today um conditional uses are uses that are not regul regulated through a list of regulations i keep saying the same word over and over but is is a good redundance um so because we have to specially fit
it to the actual use and the way that we um work through this is that the applicant comes in with a letter of intent of how they mean to operate their business uh in which they detail their operations carefully um if those
operations are something that we're okay with town-wise hours of operation number of employees um storage location of uh materials that they're going to be uh working on so we want all these things in writing from the applicant themselves if all of these are things that are okay
that we see that are going to be compatible with the neighborhood then we can issue the conditional use accordingly to tailor it to the specific operations of the that's why you know whether or not they can have walk-in customers or not would be dependent on
maybe the location of the use right so if maybe it was a um a similar use but it's in an and it's in a district where it would be okay because it's not an RO or it's something else but it's still an um office building then we could approve
it with walk-in right okay that answer the qu it's an open when these come before us we can say yes you can have walk-in or no but there's no I guess the last question could we make we're not we're not going to track sales so walk-in is just walk-in they're not
going to say "Well only 50% of sales can be walking," right because that would be complicated but again if you see the way that is written there's not going to be any outdoor advertising there's not going to be an outdoor signage there's not going to be like a door that is just to the outside it's going to be interior
to the building so just accessing the property is going to be uh trickier than than just walking into a store in Main Street got it thank you right thank you anything else all right seeing nothing further madame
clerk please call the role item 13A ordinance in first reading council member Garcia yes council member Fernandez yes council member Sanchez yes council member Hzburg
yes council member Cuadra Garcia yes vice Mayor Mora yes mayor Diegas yes the ordinance and first reading item 13A passes excellent we're now moving on to item 15A Children's Paradise Learning Center and
uh with that I'll let the the manager go ahead and read his statement why is it under Why is it under quasi judicial both of them yes they are but I don't think it needs to be read into the recommend according to what I have here he has to read a statement then the clerk will
swear in everybody and you know from there i I got got my notes here all right all right 15a children's paradise learning we're doing 15A and uh well let's take them up one at a time so start with 15 so we'll do 15A but this is going to also the
part that I'm reading now is also Oh yeah applicable to 15B as well and the swearing the the swearing of everybody will also apply to both uh we're trying to streamline this a little bit uh please be advised that the following items on the board's agenda are quasi judicial in nature an an opportunity to
persons to speak on each item will be made available after the applicant and staff had made their have made their presentations on each item all testimony including public testimony and evidence will be made under oath or affirmation additionally each person who gives testimony may be subject to cross-examination if you do not wish to
be either cross-examined or sworn your testimony testimony will be given its due weight the general public will not be permitted to cross-examine witnesses but the public may request the board to ask questions of staff or witnesses on their behalf persons representing organizations must present evidence of their authority to speak for the
organization any person presenting documents to the board should provide the provide the town clerk with a minimum of 10 copies further details of the quasi judicial procedure may be obtained from the clerk this is hearing number n
2024-088 applicant Children's Paradise Learning Center Folio 32-201500060010 location 15520 Northwest 77th Court Miami Lakes Florida 33016 zoning district BU1A in the in accordance with the town of Miami Lakes
Land Development Code the town LDC Children's Paradise Center the applicants are requesting a conditional use for an educational facility madame clerk now for your part to go ahead and swear in uh everybody the witnesses please stand and raise your
right hand do you Wait one second just be clear that applies for both items so all those that are thinking that you're going to even that you're going to speak on either item please stand and raise your right hand so do you promise to say the truth and only the truth so help you
God very well and before we even begin with a discussion of the item let me just state for the record that all the elected officials have provided me with the exarty communications for both for 15A
and for item as well 15B okay with that we're going to begin with 15A uh madam uh madam director again Susan Alonso for the planning department um this is a conditional use much like we were discussing before this is one in action today that you get to hear uh
it's a small daycare um now located in the Royal Oaks uh plaza in the corner behind um like in the back of it facing um I'm sure you all sort of kind of know yeah um they've been there for quite a few years and they're now needing to
upgrade their facility they're not doing any actual work but because of new uh insurance regulations due to fire requirements in order to have older kids in the facility they're having to do something called a change of use and they're having to go through this process where we have to now account for
the older kids separately than than they used to be so the number of kids that they're proposing to have is not changing the only thing they're changing is how the ages of the kids is allocated to where they're having 10 kids that are actually going to be older than
kindergarten so first grade and second grade and I'm going to let them do their own presentation because this is all based on the letter of intent that they submitted uh where they said how their hours of operation work how the kids are getting dropped off how they mitigate any problems they do have sufficient
outdoor space to accommodate the kids they do have sufficient facilities to accommodate the kids so I'm going to let them do their um their presentation and staff recommends approval as it meets all the conditions of uh conditional use at this point excellent the applicants
if you'll please step up you may proceed hi good evening yerys Figureroa with offices at 18239 Pines Boulevard i'm here on behalf of the applicant Children's Paradise Learning Center number five um so as Miss Alonzo
described we are simply requesting a change of use to add the educational we are only adding 10 more children in terms of ages so it would go up to second grade but our total license continues to be 124 so there will be no expansion in the number of children or in the hours for the total impact of the
property it really is just limited to changing those ages in those classrooms we would have square footage to go up a little bit more um at 30 square feet we're looking at being able to add about 20 children we're limiting it to 10 to really not create a bigger impact on the
community on traffic anything like that i think the biggest thing to reiterate and the biggest um point for you all is that really it's still 124 so we could have 124 daycare children it would just be changing them to a little bit older once they're older it really helps also
with traffic there's a bit less the times are more consistent so they get there about 8:00 they leave around 3:00 so it's a little bit less stringent on traffic than if it was um daycare children that can come and go at any time if you have any questions I'd be more than happy wait wait there's not
this guys so hold on so first we're going to go to the general public uh is was there anyone in the general public that was sworn in that wishes to speak on this application okay seeing none uh with that we're going to move on now then
to Okay yes we're going to go to uh the council to ask questions and uh let's go from my left to right so Councilman Sanchez go ahead so right now we're getting close to the end of the school year do you foresee going up to third grade
no we would only be second grade yeah okay and you currently have first and second graders yes okay so this is an after the fact type of request right so historically this this change wasn't necessary recently as was discussed earlier because of insurance and things for having to add this change okay
uh Councilman Fernandez again this just questions i want to I want to correct the fact that although this is the first time that we hear it as a council before we start arguing for or against the application focus our questions okay no I wasn't i have a question for her but I just wanted to
state that that we have we have actually heard many quasi judicial hearings through the planning and zoning board that's right yes you were on there so so no I just wanted to ask you is there I I think to piggyback on what uh Councilman Sans was saying is is there
an intent to continue to grow it and to possibly add more older children or is this kind of you're going to stay at in the second grade yeah right now we really wouldn't have more capacity than that so there is no intent to go up more than second grade um our clientele is
really the smaller kids it's really kids from daycare that sort of grow up with us and then some parents just want to feel they feel a little bit more comfortable being in a smaller environment so they keep them a little bit longer but really once they're in third grade they would go to the nearing you know public schools or private schools in the area and and I and I heard the number 124 is there any way
that you can grow that number that we're not aware of in other words is is do you have an intent to grow it to pick up the space next to you at some point or anything like that or or No there's no plans for that right now and it's it's our our geographic area within the shopping center is kind of limited we
really wouldn't be able to expand any more than than we're at so really 124 is the max that we're looking at thank you okay Vice Mayor Moretta no questions i'm ready to approve councilman Garcia no questions a Councilman Herszburg one question i
guess I just want to be clear right now you have 124 students and or and this isn't an increase this is keeping your current student capacity the same correct yeah our GCF license is for 124 so that would be no change at Okay so in reality there shouldn't be any change in
traffic or more traffic patterns everything should stay the same in fact as I stated earlier elementary students traffic patterns are a little bit more favorable than daycare perfect thank you Councilman Quad Garcia no perfect questions everything's perfect uh been answered i was going to ask about the
traffic but uh it's been answered thank you excellent okay with that uh at least based on what the attorneys handed me to hear um Susanna do you have anything else to add okay so with that I'm going to close
the public hearing and now it's for the council to debate is there any debate on uh on this particular item mayor I think we need Vice Mayor Mora I think we need a proper motion first well yes correct so I'll I'll move to approve uh CO ND
20224-0088 uh for Children's Paradise Learning Center number five Inc this is on the record and seconded been moved and seconded any debate any discussion all right seeing none all those in favor say I i all post no the eyes have it
it's approved congratulations thank you for your time 15b okay all right this is going This is hearing number uh PL A T uh 2024-0374 applicant
TGCV 6685 Eagles Nest LLC Folio 32-2013-11-000030 location 15615 Lum Road Miami Lakes Florida 33014 zoning district TC in accordance with the Town of Miami Lakes Land Development Code the town's LDC
TGC685 Eagle Nest LLC the applicants are requesting final plat approval in order to replplat portions of an existing tract excellent with All right so let's get this hearing underway the public hearing on this item is now open um go ahead
Susanna again Susan also for the planning department um this is a platting um application um platting is usually an exercise in um property lines easements uh and in this particular case
the the applicant is seeking to clean up some prior easements that they had on the property they're preparing to maybe in the future start considering different um developments for for the property and I'm going to let them talk about that and what their issues are but there was several little easements that
were just encroaching on areas including a sidewalk that was going to nowhere and they were looking to clean up and um and have this property getting ready for you know some future work in the in the and I'm going to let them explain all right
turning it over to the applicant now good evening mark Johnson Schwebkishkin 2844 corporate way Miramar um we don't actually have any immediate plans to redevelop the site at all um you know our our client has additional lands next
door um the existing facility has got a tenant and and they're staying um but to Suzanne's point um the the existing site is served by an easement by utility easement that's platted along the eastern along the eastway boundary so
we're providing um utility easements by grants um to replace the platted easements and erasing the right by plat so that we have flexibility to be able to relocate those easements in the future should an opportunity uh provide itself right um in addition at the norly
portion of the property line when the site was originally platted there was a a sidewalk easement provided there's now two sidewalks there so you don't really need two sidewalks there's a sidewalk constructed in in in the rideway so in addition we're um vacating that sidewalk
easement so that's the extent of the application uh but I said we're not here to develop the site so um if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them all right before we get there any members of the public wishing to speak on this that were previously sworn in seeing none uh we'll go ahead and move
over now to um yes to the council for questions again from my left to right Councilman Sanchez any questions councilman Fernandez any questions vice Mayor Moretta any questions councilman Garcia any questions yes one question okay you're recognized for a question just a quick question the sidewalk is
that between the uh the the properties the extra sidewalks no no no the sidewalks on um on Cowpen on the on north side of the street oh okay yeah yeah and I said you probably don't even realize it until you kind of walk there and it's like I drive there all the time it's Yeah it's because it's on the other
side of the kind of the landscape so it's kind of until you're like on the sidewalk and Yeah yeah so they're keeping the All right uh any other questions that's it thank you a Councilman Herszburg questions i'm good thank you Mayor councilman Quad Garcia any questions i got a a quick question i just want Yes
sir was there at one time a nightclub there oh my god yes uh there was I think there was a nightclub next to it um on the south side to to the east but not on the not on this side no this this is a bank site okay the three
okay okay and so with that uh wait no I don't remember that anyway Susanna anything else to add i can't see her there we go okay so just to remind that um that sidewalk right now is a sidewalk to nowhere u if
you follow a sidewalk you basically land into a fence um so it's really not doing any anything for our transportation master plan or for anything there's sufficient sidewalks and sufficient accommodations right now so it's not necessary perfect do you have anything else to add on your side no okay with
that is there a motion i'll move it all right it's been uh it's been moved for approval by Councilman Garcia for the reasons on the record is there a second i'll second seconded by Councilman Herszburg uh any discussion any debate with that said um all those in favor say
I i all oppose no uh congratulations the item passes have a good night guys all right so now we are on 16A no left turn on southbound Northwest 79th Avenue by Councilman Sanchez you're recognized to present your item thank you very much so we are aware of the traffic issues at
Bob Graham Educational Center um and some of the issues is a gridlock right at the intersection that goes into the northern loop for pickup at the school that gridlock occurs into the Royal Oaks area when cars are coming out of Royal
Oaks and trying to turn into the school causing that congestion where residents of Royal Oaks or anyone traveling out of Royal Oaks on 39th Avenue are not able to exit in order to facilitate that and and have continuous movement of traffic in addition to preventing cars from
staging inside of Royal Oaks to then come down 79th Avenue and make a left into the school I'm proposing um and this is one of of of a few ideas but it's the as I say the the lowhanging fruit that we can do sooner rather than
later um to allow cars to just continue traveling have an an expedited way of getting out of the Royal Oaks area without having impededment of traffic into the school additionally um I do believe that my sons when they were younger uh they went to Miami Cade
Center and we lived very in in very much close vicinity and one of the memories that they they to remember to this day mind you my sons are are now in in high school um is riding their bikes to school and walking to school and not just on t on walk your child to to you know walk your child to to school for
that one day a year but they still remember that to this day and I think that'll motivate um more parents that live outside of town to have that experience that bring that that family oriented experience to to the residents of that part so I I wholeheartedly hope
that someone second this this u this item and uh we can just create a no left turn and you know help the flow of seconded for discussion on 79th it's been moved and seconded by Vice Mayor Mora uh we'll begin with you for discussion so uh I I definitely agree
with the with the nature of the item and I agree with its with its goal what I'm thinking is the manager brought up one minor concern or I guess major concern um and it's that we don't know the effect that it could have
where some some of the parents presumably who are picking up kids do live in Royal Oaks and now they have to leave and then come all the way back because there is no left turn um what I would propose is for a period of time we
already have officers stationed there every day right during pickup and drop off um why not just temporarily just so that we could see the effect of this just put some cones in the middle of the street lining parallel with the middle
of the street so that it blocks cars from making a left if we see that we don't cause a calamity then then we go with with uh do doing this uh the the no left turn sign i think that that's a way of testing the theory before uh investing the money in it but I think
that that overall it's a great item do do you want to directly address it before we move on to the next uh person okay go ahead so so right now the on the southern loop that is for fourth and fifth pickup the Miami Dade resource officer stands does that exact idea but
he puts his cop car in the middle so nobody can make a left in order to alleviate the the traffic going down mind you this is no left turn only in the afternoon hours not in the morning hours so as parents are on the way to work they're still able to make a left because that is more of a staggered drop
off this is the whole intention of it is just in the afternoon and it would follow the school schedule so if if there's no school obviously then there's no reason to turn into a school there's no reason to to have the the no left turn left lane there but yes I you know I believe the cone um experiment was
done in the past if I'm not mistaken um can come up for Major Gonzalez is here i would probably speak to what what has happened in the past and just to be clear we don't have the authority to implement the has to go to the county yeah it would have to go to the county so everything from here that we're
speaking about would be a recommendation the county would have to approve just because of the road transfer agreement like that's road traffic engineering yeah any traffic engineering they have to they have authority still open this is just a starting point i see the major has come up to the podium here i don't know if there's any
Yeah it was about the the experiment that was done in the past where cones were set up already to not allow cars to make a left turn into the northern to make a suggestion on your item um obviously the the sign would be like a hard thing and then it would take a while to implement it but I think to the
vice mayor's um recommendation I I I think we have we had a brief typing that starting the next school year where we put the cones so you have to put you have to put an officer there because the way people drive they'll just come against traffic and turn in anyway if you don't have an officer
there the cones are just going to be irrelevant you put the cone they're just going to come on the wrong side of the road and turn in right so you have to staff it with an officer um and then we could give that a trial like you said um we could see how that if the positive effects of it the negative effects of it
then come back um and see if it's warranted for a full time but we we really the to tell you too you don't even have to go through the trouble putting a sign cuz if we're there just during the afternoon like you're requesting um through the manager and you know it's something that you guys want to to get done then we'll we'll do
it okay it's you know it's we just be there we'd have to if you had the sign there we still have to be there right because they'll make the left anyway with the sign right right until the the so we have to be there and if we just are given the the direction that that's what you guys want not to let us
anybody's coming turn southbound turn in then we just man it and you know and that that's what we'll do right yeah it's just I would like to try the the cone idea um we still have about a month and a half left of school so if possible maybe for for a week or so to see how it
pans out that way by the if it does pan out we have the entire summer to process it and it's already there at the beginning of the summer where the majority majority of the parents because traffic fluctuates throughout the school year the beginning of the of the school year is very heavy because all the parents want to go and drop off their kids and be with them for those few
minutes for that first week or two until everything irons out and everybody gets into their their schedules um so if we can do that experiment now instead of at the beginning of the school year so that we were ready for the new school year right we would have to work with the school to make some notifications it's
hard to do like a hard implementation of that be a week or something yeah there's got to be like a week or so to actually start giving out one week yeah people give the Because if not now we'll be fighting the system right um at least the school we work with the school we have the conversation robin does a great
job communicating hey look like we did with the no parking in certain areas we're going to start giving tickets right we kind of gave out that that warning they gave out the warning to the parents they sent them an email make a phone call right hey um the police there's a new traffic pattern going to effect uh effective this week the police is not going to allow you anymore to
make a left so they can prepare accordingly instead of be parking up there now they'll be parking down there uh ping planning for the new route okay so we could we could do that you know if that's what you guys want to do okay a uh council member Cuadra Garcia and then
Councilman Fernandez if I understood this correctly um are we talking about So basically the traffic that's down my alley though is that so basically they would be coming from the north into the south on 77th 79th 79th
I'm sorry a correction um and they would not be able or will eliminate them from making a left turn to go into the school so basically that leaves them going down south and having to rope themselves somewhere on 154 to come back or going
to the windixie my worries are traffic we're going now to deviate traffic all the way to 154 Street and then that would yeah we'll elim we'll eliminate this one but then then we'll
cause chaos on the other end i mean does that make sense you're just going to displace it but it's going to it's going to solve the issue with the the pre-staging inside Royal Oaks and to the resident anywhere to the there will be no more pre-staging to the north of the school because
you're not going to come directly into the school from there so that's going to alleviate the concerns that the residents inside Royal Oaks the cars by the guard gate now if they come from the south there'll be nobody north in there staging unless I could see maybe some parent tell a kid to park on the swale and tell hey meet me up here but they're
not going to be driving blocking the street coming or filing southbound there'll be no traffic southbound on 79 Avenue during dismissal because the traffic will only be going northbound through the mayor you're recognized to put it simply yes uh we don't know and
the cones kind of gives us a little trial period where we don't spend any money there's no permanent fixture we figure out does it do that if so we stop doing it okay it's also going to probably alleviate us staffing the officers within Royal Oaks the extra two
officers because now they'll be that issue up there will will probably be uh remedied council Fernandez uh thank you Mayor so I I'm all for the item i think that it's worth a a try um do you foresee because this is one thing
that I that I have in my head do you foresee anybody passing us from so not making a left and continuing southbound on 79th Avenue and then making a U-turn at some point there's no U-turn signs there you can't make a U-turn on 79th
Avenue okay so that that's You don't believe that'll happen well if they do then they're going to just face the consequences but we will we talked about that already in pre pre-staging if we had to do it we would have to have an officer there doing citations and issue at the beginning so people know they
can't make a U-turn because there are no U-turn signs you're not any most all schools have no U-turn signs in front of the schools on those strips so there is no Uturn signs for northbound and southbound traffic on 79 uh in that school zone okay i'm off for the item josh Councilman Garcia
well listen if if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing which is listening to the residents and and they're stuck in their homes all these years if this is something that could relieve that and we can test it out I'm all for it as well so yeah that's going to alleviate residential uh concerns it just task more for the commercial 154 street area
but you know it's it's it's it's a divider but again it's just you know it will definitely alleiate the residents concern i I'll bring up my comments after everybody else has their round councilman Harsburg yeah I I in favor of that item i just want to understand
where we're at you made the mo you made the first motion but then you talked about the trial so are we are we do we do you want amend the motion so we can get the trial going things like that i just want to make sure we get it clear that's what I'm But otherwise I'm in favor if you think it's a good idea then I'm Councilman Sanchez for a motion so I
move to amend it to do the trial with the cones with the police officers for through the end of the school year whichever window is available um and if it pans out then over the summer we can come back and look at the results and you know move forward and send it up to the county yes amendment i could give
you a report in the uh June meeting how that goes up as a followup because it's the third week of June school will be done by then right and then during the June uh report uh just we'll we'll come back to you with our any discussion on the amendment seeing none all those in favor say I i close we're back on the
item as amended with this item um a I'll close with this on my end a I I'm glad that we're going to do now this trial period i think that's more prudent because we also have obviously it's not just commercial uh uh users of of the of 154 right that's a lot of residents
trying to get to the Palmetto and and around town so the last thing I would want to do though is that the cure is worse than the disease as it were um if and we make things worse on 154 which is going to affect everybody equally uh if well I would argue even worse especially during peak hours so I'm glad we're
going this route i'm in full support are there any any other debate on this particular item all right seeing none all those in favor say I i i all oppose no the eyes have it the motion carries 16a passes thank you 16b HOA approvals in the building permit process by
Councilman Hsburg you're recognized to introduce the item thank you Mayor um so this item I've had some back and forth with the town manager and and Danny from code as well uh basically my what I've heard and especially from one association of our
oaks who is probably one of the more active ones on this issue is uh people are just basically lying on this affidavit and we know they are it's a fact they are not obtaining HOA approval so I see it as one of two ways if we
know we're giving them a document that we do nothing about we either get rid of the document or we give the document some teeth um back and forth with with the with staff and the town manager i don't believe it would be prudent for our staff to require HOA approval as part of the permitting process that
would slow things down uh my position is that we should I I work with staff and we create we create some type of violation that if we knowingly if if it is a either a code or civil citation that I'm in between that I'm happy to discuss if someone knowingly lies on the
affidavit which would that that report would come from the HOA that we create some sort of violation for that so that would be my motion is there a second second it's been moved and seconded is anybody really sure that they want to discuss this item okay fine but please make it quick go just uh quickly I I think I do
favor more a complete removal uh and that's primarily because I do come from the HOA world right that that was my background and sometimes a complete divorce of these two entities is better than congaling them uh at the end of the
day the town can't be responsible for determining are you lying or are you not lying you know what do what do the Satori condo docs say versus the Lake Martha HOA condo docs say you know or Royal Oaks whatever um and so that that
I do actually feel more separation and the way it is right now if they're lying they're lying but it they are under oath you know it is an affidavit uh and that's on them if they want to perjure themselves any and any any further just just a
comment on on Vice Mayor Monos i I don't agree with um with it being a separation and I think that it it's not necessarily that the staff uh decides or or lets the applicant know what the rules are per
HOA i think it's just to establish that there may be and I think that's the phrase they use that there may be an approval process for whatever they're trying to apply it with so they don't get into specifics um if if it was up to me I think that I would give it more teeth and separate it but that's my
opinion through the chair councilman Garcia thank you Mayor this is this is um about efficiency as well right uh you know we approve something and then the HOA it's against the HOA rules and then they they run against they run against that um you know there there has to be a
mechanism where um where they're you know either they're told or they're saying you know check with your HOA whatever we have to do to to prevent this because you know if we we support something that the HOA doesn't approve then they can't do anything anyway so um separating it
totally I think I don't know I mean how many um how many bylaws um I mean we have what what seven HOAs right now um I mean honestly I don't think it's a is it too much of a hassle to say hey by the way what you want to do your HOA is
again so you better rethink it here and prevent you know it's a service we're providing for the residents it's a service we're providing for the HOA i know it's a little bit harder for the staff but we're nipping it in the butt early before you know thousands of dollars are spent on something or processes are done or or plans are are
are made or architect plans are made i'm just thinking if we can nip it in the butt here the cascade effect is a lot better for our residents and the HOA and us in the end so I'm I would do a friendly amendment I think we we should maybe be able to to see what the what
the what the rules are of the HOA before we approve something i just want to reiterate that again staff is going to be coming back to us with uh to flesh out Councilman Herszburg proposal at least in my view um the the whole requirement of that affidavit just stems from again the roots of the town which
is that the HOAs perform an important function in maintaining the look and feel of the town uniformity etc and so it's important that in those areas that have HOAs right that the town at least backs them up in their mission now understandably there are HOAs that maybe
can go a little overboard right in in how they enforce things but they have remedies there too um as you know um so and this is just about uh just ensuring again that the original uh intent behind that affidavit is fulfilled or in the alternative if what comes back is is not
adequate then you know we just go ahead and do separation church and HOA if you will so um but I just wanted to to bring that up um is there any anything else on on this particular item okay all those in favor say I i all those no the eyes
have it the item carries and we'll hear back soon enough from staff we're now on 16e no U-turn during specific times by Councilman Sanchez who is recognized to introduce his item thank you very much so on Miami Drive right at the entrance of the golf course
um former Vice Mayor Nelson Rodriguez had an agenda item to place a no U-turn sign it was approved and subsequently a no U-turn sign has been placed that is in effect 24 hours a day 7 days a week um 365 days a year however
I would like to have it modified to be only in effect during peak hours of traffic the purpose if I understand that correctly of that U-turn no U-turn sign being placed there was because drivers coming off the Palmetto uh off the 826 that needed to go westbound would get
off make a right turn to go eastbound make a U-turn in order to bypass all the traffic but they would in turn create traffic on Miami Lakes Drive westbound that would back up to almost 67th Avenue which is still somewhat the case now but it's it's it's one solution at a time
however 77th Avenue is home to many health facilities like Baptist Urgent Care Miami Children's Urgent Care um recently I was there i wasn't feeling very well i was under the weather um and thankfully I live on the east side of town so I didn't have to make a U-turn but I can only imagine someone that
isn't feeling well having to drive down even further to make a U-turn to return back home during a non- peak hour so let's say 10 11 o'clock in the morning i would like to modify it to only be on no U-turn during peak hours so for example from 3 to 6:00 p.m or 3 to 7:00 p.m so
that individuals getting off the palmetto wouldn't be able to make that U-turn that is the goal of this all right is there a second second all right it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion or debate seeing none all those in favor
say I i all oppose no the item carries congratulations and now we are on my previous order of the council items uh 16F G and J were combined this all deals with the special taxing district guard uh guardgate district so with that um I guess we'll we'll start with Councilman
Hsburg uh thank you and and obviously Councilman Cuadra and and Fernand come in uh but we've had this discussion before now we do I want to bring forward that we do have the STD
workshop coming up so I wanted to bring this to get the idea of the council and we'll come back on discussions but basically we have lockman that checks driver license uh 24/7 uh previously Royal Oaks tried to implement it it was
implemented a little suddenly and I think that's one of the reasons it failed so I want to discuss one whether or not we should just grant the town manager the right to determine implementing procedures for these gate guards as part of his administrative
authority and then two a baseline of if we want to proceed with the licensing checks at night time at night basically a baseline of how you go forward with it how do you make sure you make sure the residents are aware giving the residents and those districts an opportunity to
have stickers on the cars for the ones that don't have resident lanes and things like that and whether or not we want to do that uh so I'll give it over to Councilman Fernandez and Cuadra about anything else but it's I want to have the discussion and we can talk about a little bit more in the workshop but before we get there I just noticed
something that almost escaped my eye here we I need a motion to wave 7.2 uh same 7.2 two of the rules of special order or excuse me of special rules of order it's a Cuban coffee I guess i'll move but uh Okay thank you who's who's uh is there a second second thank you
all those in favor of waving section 7.2 say I i oppose no the rule is waved all right now Councilman Fernandez go ahead thank you Mayor um so the the intent of it and I I think that a lot of times
it's lost and um Councilman Herzburg was was gracious enough to find in the ordinance of of the Coral Coral Gables um their their ordinance is where they they require it and they they ask um the driver a question as to what their
intent or what their destination is and the destination and these are specific to the same type of special taxing districts that we have in the town where they're public roads and they require a destination and it could be as simple as I'm going to drive around the neighborhood because I I I want to see
Christmas lights and that's okay but I think that sometimes asking the driver's licenses is lost on a lot of folks where whether or not it's legal and or whether or not it's going to um stop them from driving and I think that the intent really is to have a for the guard to
have a conversation with the driver to look at them in the eyes for the driver to have to speak to them and whether they give it to them or not I I don't think that it matters as long as that conversation is had so I'm all for it i I hope that um my colleagues agree with
me um we're we're not asking for during peak um you know hours where folks are driving in and out often um I think that it would deter traffic I mean excuse me deter crime if we can do it from 11 to 6:00 for instance or midnight to 6:00
and I'd like to hear my colleague's thoughts through the mayor who Who is that that was asking first uh Vice Mayor Mora and then Councilman Herszburg and then Councilman Garcia well I just wanted Do we Do you want to have a motion first i thought we had one
yeah we had No no one's made a motion yet motion no no one's apologies my my my motion will be that we require the guards to uh request uh driver's licenses from the drivers from the hours of uh 11 to 6:00 a.m 11:00 p.m to 6 a.m
okay is there a second i'll second second all right seconded by Councilman Sanchez uh and we'll uh so now going back to discussion Vice Mayor Moretta Councilman Herszburg Councilman Cuadra Garcia and then we'll come back around thank you Mayor uh primarily it's a
question for legal um I really like this uh model statute from the city of Coral Gables um my only question is this last sentence in the first portion of it that says failure of the
driver to open the window or provide the destination constitutes a municipal ordinance violation given the public nature of these streets is that something that we can actually write you can the way that the attorney general's
opinion have developed is that if it's a public road okay you cannot prohibit someone from going in could you make a requirement that they roll down their window sure if you cite them for it though I'm not sure that that's
something that would stick because that's they don't have to you know you can make the request you can ask them for their driver's license you can try to engage in conversation but if they don't want to and they want to just have access to the road you can't prohibit
them from from having access okay but like like it says here if they even failed to open the window uh that's a municipal ordinance by I would be very concerned about passing something like that you what i would be very concerned about passing something like that and
the fact that it could be challenged i I understand yeah so yeah to to the colleagues uh I'll say I love this ordinance except that sentence uh with with the exception of that sentence just cuz right away it popped up to me as constitutional concerns uh and just
privacy concerns uh what's up no you you you're coming up like you got something to say i do not not to cut you off whenever you already we're done i was going to say something just to touch on something i know you guys probably never heard about it but I just wanted to talk about it because John's not here
but uh we were made aware about it um probably late last week that they did have an incident in Llman where the security guard went to a car that fit an MO of the cars that we're looking for that are trying to break into cars with a temp tag um and dark tints and when he
went to the driver's side to try to make contact with the car the car took off and went out he didn't even go inside so he kind of disengaged and left so I just wanted to let you guys know about that which is really important to what's going on that's a perfect example um that that we're aware of and then now
the guards will be let notifying our guys to be on the lookout for that car once they experience something like that i already talked John about it to to kind of notify our midnight guys hey we had a suspicious car he didn't want ID he took off and he left cuz you know if a person wants to be a driver they will go in but these guys like actually they
felt like they were being challenged and they left so that right there is uh So it did it job the red light yeah it did it job just wanted to let you guys know about that so So yeah I I completely support this minus that one little part just cuz I don't like having parts that are that really have no teeth in them um
uh but the rest of it is is is great this good work to you to all of you guys this is new business right so we'll have but we'll have a chance to Yeah okay uh in in keeping with the previous order Councilman Herszburg thank you mayor for so first I don't really ne we can speak
about it i don't necessarily believe we need the ordinance i was shocked to see that ordinance okay i was shocked to see that and I I don't think anyone's attacked it i think we'll we'll see we'll discuss uh with legal um regarding regarding the motion i I want to proceed
but two things one uh is this about both of the other uh STDs that do this or we go implement it on both because right now you know I think it makes sense to have them all do the same i mean Lockman does it 247 uh I know for for a fact you
know the rural side wants it i don't know about section one section one has a resident lane so honestly it shouldn't it shouldn't affect the residents whatsoever i'm for it um and then the other thing is but I do think that if we implement it we need to go by some guidelines like I had here so I would
amend that motion make a friendly amendment do that you have to give residents notice give them opportunity to the clickers uh and then for our side on Royal Oaks there are two entrances that don't have resident lanes so like Loman has the stickers that's something I would want to discuss with staff as
well do you have any quick rebuttal on Oh okay second the friendly amendment okay so So just can you restate what the amendment was just clear is it to apply it to everybody or I I Yes I I think it would apply to the
the remaining so the rema the two STDs that do not currently check for a license to do this nighttime non- peak hour license check request along these guidelines with giving the residents notice so So you're you're okay understood um with that it's there's
it's been moved and seconded um a I guess we'll start with you then on any discussion on this okay councilman Fernandez um a Councilman Garcia councilman Cuadra Garcia uh Councilman Sanchez well my concern with Oh sorry go
ahead councilman Cuadra Garcia on the amendment i like the uh the idea i know that we're talking about uh rules and laws but I like that idea from 11 p.m to 6 a.m i think I think it would
work i think it would be a deterrent and I think it would uh as as they said we would have the guard and the the pedestrian have that contact and I think that he would think about it twice
before he would pursue to do anything i I I like that idea and how do you feel about applying it equally to all the uh special tax absolutely okay i'm going to play a little bit of the devil's advocate here the whole point of having the um you know yes the council
ultimately makes the final choice but I would like to get some input especially from some of the other Hways before I would support something like that um you know so at least for the amendment for now I I would be down just because I want to I want them to make the you know uh to hear from them right you know
especially section one has seven different uh HOAs and you know so I just would want to hear from more residents in those areas you know and I agree with you 100% that's why we have the workshop coming up and we can come back with staff and just say you know what it only do the Royal Oak side or or whatnot I
understand that so um in all honesty I just want to get moving on implement menting this i think the next meeting is maybe when we would actually implement and we have the workshop in between yeah exactly you know but uh and again I do believe and and with lockman in particular when when we had the issues
and we had to switch from Kent to SFM this is one of the points that was brought up i actually had encouraged them to go ahead and ask you know to implement this policy i'm glad to hear that it's working again it's only a deterrent and for those that don't know any better it will work right as as we deserve from the major but with that
here let's go ahead and vote um and madame clerk please call the role on the amendment yes on the amendment council member Hzburg yes council member Sanchez yes council member Cuadra yes
garcia council member Garcia yes council member Fernandez yes vice Mayor Mora yes and Mayor Diegas no okay the motion passes yep we're now back on the main motion any further debate on the main motion as amended point of clarification
we are not by voting yes on this directing as of today we're not directing our our manager or our staff or JP to start checking IDs tonight right it's got to come back uhhuh okay so with that Madame Clerk please call
the role on this on the main motion as amended council member Hsburg yes council member Fernandez yes council member Cuadra Garcia yes council member Garcia yes
council member Sanchez yes vice Mayor Mora yes mayor Diegas no for the time being the motion passes okay next we are Councilman Cuadra Garcia i believe you wanted to just discuss or have a discussion generally
about the security guard that's pictured in your photo there thank you Mr mayor um as I wrote here on the on page 759 public safety is a priority for our residents and the safeguarding of our
guard gates it is crucial to to our protection and well-being sleeping security guards during their line of duty is in responsible and unprofessional and unacceptable behavior
this has been an ongoing situation for years that I can remember for over 20 years starting from Kent now to uh to SFM has been going on issue for years
and this behavior needs to stop please see attachment pictures i would like to discuss with my colleagues options to end the security guard negligence ladies and gentlemen or gentlemen yeah ladies
and gentlemen this is actually a safety issue not only well number one we're not getting what we're paying for number two this officer this is actually the third time I've caught him sleeping i wake him
up could be at 3 in the morning it could be at 4 in the morning because I'm up at all times of the night i'm a night I'm a night out so this is at around three something that I caught him somebody can literally go by and just we have a lot
of silly people out there they can literally hurt this gentleman and that's that's that's not safe for him and it's not fair for us that we're paying for service again so I'd like to hear it from uh from So we have the representatives from SFM here i don't
know if uh John or or Christian would like to speak uh and and as I understand it though there have there has been some um actions already taken with respect to this gentleman yes thank you Mayor thank you [Music]
that works if you see the green light on it should be on okay okay thank you mayor thank you Councilman for for this opportunity uh so yes uh we recognize that uh any officer not paying attention to their duties is unprofessional and
this is something that we don't embrace and we're actually uh committed to controlling so several actions have been taken to that effect um number one we are committed to performing supervisor visits uh we would normally supervise a
post an average of three times a week in the case of Royal Oaks uh we are supervising them every other day um in some cases we're even visiting them more frequently because there's a need to also fuel vehicles so supervisors are present uh
literally in every shift and we keep records of these visits second we have installed checkpoints specially to be monitored between uh 11:00 p.m and 5:00 a.m which are the times where vehicle traffic slows down through all these guard gates so officers are encourage
are mandated to check on these checkpoints every 30 minutes if they don't check on these checkpoints an alarm is triggered and that encourages immediately our SLC that operates 24/7 to call on the officer and make sure that the officer is alert and aware of
the responsibility on top of that we have camera monitoring we have installed cameras in all guardouses that's at our cost and we also have those cameras monitored by our SOC to also force our officers to remain awake and remain
alert uh on top of that we also implemented radio checks so on top of the phones that are used to capture pictures for all the officers we're also have radios to have you know parallel communications with all the guard posts
now having said all this uh yes someone may fall through the cracks i recognize that so we we just need to do more of this and keep the officer alert and active uh as you're aware between uh
midnight and 6:00 a.m we also place the exit gate on manual which means that the officer also needs to take a picture of all the vehicles exiting through those guardouses so that also keeps the officer alert during those times so
while I recognize that that picture is accurate uh actions have been taken the officer has been removed and we have increased all our activity to simply make sure that the officers remain alert i'm going to turn over over questions to
my colleagues uh Vice Mayor Moretta and who who else let's let's get in order of of Okay and uh Councilman Fernandez uh and Councilman Cuadra Garcia that'll be our order again the vice mayor uh Fernandez and then Cuadra Garcia thank you Mayor uh first of all thank you for being here uh thank you for
being willing to accept uh responsibility and also uh work with us on on finding a solution um regarding these uh procedures you mentioned the the checkpoint the radio
the cameras etc um have you done an First of all these procedures weren't implemented as of the drafting of this uh new business item i assume you've had these in place for some time now right
yeah absolutely um have you done a I guess your own investigation internally to determine how this one slipped through the cracks that there was no radio check that there was no checkpoint scanned that there that the cameras didn't pick up on this individual cuz
you know I'm hearing uh council member Garcia saying he's caught the same exact gentleman three separate times so three separate times he's slipping through the cracks uh so I guess my question is have you looked internally to see why it is that he's slipping through the cracks so
that we can fill that crack and and prevent it from continuing to happen sure so the security operations center uh is monitoring all our security officers it is not dedicated to uh town Miami Lakes which means that that SOC
may be busy attending other things at that point in time so what may happen what may have happened is that the SOC was busy attending other business and you know they may have failed to conduct a radio check during that 30 minute period or the officer may have checked
the checkpoint and then sat down and without activity just dozed off uh the obvious reason for why this happened is because fatigue uh sometimes we're not just not aware if the officer may have conducted business during that day that
may have exhausted him and not have the time to rest before the next shift so those are frequent uh you know situations that we need to control thank you thank you again for being here i I'm satisfied i I live in the same guardgates where this gentleman was um
was photographed um the important thing is I think that SFM has addressed it um I think they've you've stated that you've removed the officer um I'm satisfied with that um and the safeguards that you have in place are
certainly um going to prevent that from happening and it it may happen again it's something that you know we we all deal with um and there are things that don't always work perfectly but I I do appreciate the efforts that you make to try to resolve it and and make it safer
for us so that's it yeah um and again as my colleague stated thank you for what you're doing but this is not the first time about 6 months ago I caught and I have the police report another individual that left the post at
around 3:55 a.m and went down to Wind Dixie to meet so I'll bring those pictures if they're needed and I'll bring the police report when I then the guard he left the post completely and I'm there like is he in the bathroom did
he pass out what was it no he had left the guard gate and I called the police cuz we had four cars that were staggered back to back and here's this individual coming from the Bob Graham Elementary in the Windixie area and I'm going like
where were you oh I was on break you don't leave your post so I have that police report also this is not a one time this has been happening for quite some time this is the safety of your guards not only is it the service
that your company renders to this town so I hope that this is taken care of and that we can move forward in a healthy way and it gets taken care of anyone else all right seeing nothing further
thank you all and uh we are now on item 16H Miami Lakes Connect app by Vice Mayor Mora you are recognized to introduce your item thank you Mr mayor uh so our town has uh long been committed to improving the use of uh
technology to enhance transparency and open lines of effective communication uh with residents and business owners uh in this spirit I'd like to have a discussion with uh you guys about making certain improvements to the Miami Lakes Connect app uh I will say this
originally started off as a very angry MBI uh so but I have to give a huge amount of credit to uh both Clarisel and um Edmang thank you Edmang uh who sat with me and addressed a lot of the uh
issues that the app had um w without the need to bring it up here but uh now that they addressed that I wanted to address some improvements that can be made so the app is now working fine uh it's
working as it should um but I think it can be a little bit better it could work for our residents a little better and this is some of the stuff that uh I was uh thinking that we could do uh so right now under the home app uh I'm not going to actually read this entire thing u
honestly it's a lot i recommend you read it uh if anyone has any specific questions I'm happy to answer it but right now I'll just move to adopt my recommendation within the written uh new business item is there a second i'll second is there any discussion seeing
none all those in favor say I i all oppose no the eyes have it motion carries all right so 16 I by Councilman Sanchez medians expansion or median expansion on Northwest 77th Avenue and 154 Street so this is somewhat of a
second part to the to to my last item um coming out of 77th Avenue is a right turn only uh but there are a lot of drivers um and even 18-wheelers to the point that they come out they ignore the right turn only and they come out and they make a left to even just not
last week but the week prior there were multiple 18-wheers that were blocking all four lanes of Miami Lakes Drive because of how long they were and causing heavy traffic because they were doing it at peak hours so instead of placing a police officer there I do believe that it's something that I've driven around like the Coral Gables area
where whereas a right turn only on the median the median comes out enough to where cars that try to make that left instead of a right would have to go over the median and prevent them from from making that that left is to you know to start thinking of ideas and this is just
a very uh initial draft of what can be done is the the red arrow that I pointed that I put there on the upper left portion of the picture uh to have drivers make that right instead of coming out and making a left and blocking all four lanes and increasing the volume of traffic going westbound on
my medic drive okay so that is the item is there a second is there a motion i thought I Yeah I sorry I didn't hear the motion i'll second it but uh I'm I'm sorry did you address the pork trap possibility as
an alternative uh fix or That's something that I have seen um in the past however I know we have one on the in the residential area that's on the southwest corner of my of 67th Avenue and 167th but that is very easily to
completely bypass because if you come out just enough you can completely bypass it and still make a left this will completely prevent it because it's much a much bigger extension and it would also lend itself to annex um a point of frustration for certain drivers
that are coming west on Miami Lakes Drive some drivers in order to bypass that they go into the turning lane even though they're not going to turn and back up at the front they cut back into traffic backing up all the traffic that's going westbound on Miami Lakes Drive and it's a point of frustration if you know you're doing the right thing you're following the law and not trying
to bypass everyone and then you see someone up ahead oh pardon me cut in in front of everybody else so you know that's something that's just in the in the planning phase is something that I would like to work with the with Omar and uh and see what we can come up with to have a more permanent solution to
have drivers not make that left okay any discussion just point of inquiry i'm sorry I didn't catch what the motion itself was is to have to come back with a recommendation on what this would look like it cost all that exactly so then on that note um my uh my only comment is I
I agree with the mayor i like the what did you call it a pork chop that's cool that's cool um but uh I also uh echo Council Member Sanchez's concern i just say make a tall pork chop yeah and and the one that council member Sanchez is
referring to up there on 67th across from the fire station is very ineffective but there are some that are much much more effective and we can work on that with staff and wages but as far as coming back with proposals
uh I'm good with that one comment uh uh Councilman Fernandez real quick if it could be I I would like for it to to be filled in with grass if we end up doing something like that and not cement say that again not PA papavers would be okay i would be open to papavers or continue the papavers or
not okay i I would be okay with papavers just any additional aesthetic comments questions seeing none all those in favor say I i all oppose no the eyes have it and we are now done with any business items councilman Herszburg you are recognized for your report and then we
will adjourn thank you Mayor um yeah legislation is still pending we'll see what happens during uh the remaining of the session uh I'll probably come back to you guys in June or July with uh ideas of alternate options based off the outcome that's all and uh lastly did I
understand correctly that today is your anniversary Mr vice Mayor it is well congratulations and happy anniversary to you and thank you so all right with that the time is 10:36 p.m we are now journed