Hello my friends, Vanessa Joseph here, your elected city clerk in the bright city of North Miami. As we step into the spring season, I'm excited to bring you another edition of Long Meeting Short, where I'll give you the highlights of what took place during our March 24,
2026 regular city council meeting. During the council meetings, special presentations, the mayor and city council recognized National Procurement Month and our procurement department emphasizing the important role procurement professionals play in
ensuring transparency, efficiency, and responsible use of public funds. Centennial updates were also provided and they shared progress on the upcoming events and initiatives celebrating North Miamiy's 100year anniversary. For more
information on our centennial celebration, visit www.northmiami.gov/nomme 100. Mayor and council appointed Justin Barant to the Parks and Recreation Commission. It's always important to make your voice heard and one of the
best ways to do that is by serving on a city board or committee. By joining, you can help shape North Miami's future and be part of the decisions that impact your community. Join your North Miami neighbors who are already making a
difference through public service. To learn more, including to obtain a list of available boards and how to apply, visit www.northmiami.go. GV/City clerk. However, I do have to tell you
that as the city continues its process of reviewing its boards, there may be some changes. You may recall that the downtown action plan advisory committee or dayack was recently abolished. During this past council meeting, mayor and
council voted to also remove the education relations board, youth opportunity board. An update to our 2025 storm water master plan was adopted and will be implemented to guide citywide drainage, flooding, and resiliency efforts. In October of 2000, the city
prepared a phase 2 storm water master plan to mitigate areas of chronic flooding, address storm water quality concerns, and bring the city into compliance with the National Flood Insurance Programs community rating system guidelines. Over the years that
followed, it was updated to incorporate construction projects, identify flooding and water quality concerns, evaluate land use changes, consider sea level rise projections, and essentially capture new and relevant data. This
revised plan includes updated data analysis, storm water modeling, flood risk mapping, and recommendations for system improvements. This update helps the city better manage flooding, improve water quality, and strengthen long-term resilience. WT Partnership will provide
technical advisory and transaction management services for the city's proposed downtown revitalization initiative or DRT at a cost not to exceed $944,400. The DRT is what some of you also refer
to as the city's P3 project. The three Ps being public, private partnerships. A P3 is when a government agency teams up with a private company to help create or improve a public project or service. The private company brings the
investment and expertise, and the public agency gains needed infrastructure or services without taking on all of the upfront costs alone. The services that this consultant will provide are designed to support planning, coordination, and execution of the
project, helping advance redevelopment efforts within the city over an estimated 8-month timeline. Oh, and I should definitely mention that the anticipated funding source for this contract is a grant that the city received through the Build America
Bureau's innovative finance and asset concession grant program. North Miami's utility billing policy was supposed to be updated to transition from quarterly to monthly billing cycles, but after much discussion and public comment, that item was actually tabled. Some of you
might remember that back in 2021, mayor and council adopted a plan specifically for the city's water and sewer collection and transmission system, which included the methodology for calculating the utility billing on both
a monthly and quarterly billing cycle. Eventually, our 2023 annual comprehensive financial report included recommendations to implement monthly utility billing cycles for all accounts to address the issue of non-payment.
Currently, the city collects on about 50% of its accounts, which is about $38.2 million. So, stand by for what's going to happen with our utility bills. And now we move on to something you heard brought up
maybe as a discussion item. a while back, it was even maybe last year. In July 2025, mayor and council approved the selection of Performance Services, Inc. or PSI in response to an RFQ for guaranteed energy, water, and wastewater
performance savings contracting services for the proposed upgrade of the city's existing manual water meter system to an advanced metering infrastructure or AMI system. What is that? Well, if you have the FPL
app, I think it would be like that but for water. The intent of the project is to improve the monitoring of water usage while modernizing operations and enhancing utility services for residents. According to a recent audit, the new
water meter technology could help the city bring in more money and save money at the same time. Each year, it's expected to create about $6.4 $4 million in total savings. Most of that, about $6.2 million, would come from collecting
more of the money already owed for water use. Another, let's say $150,000 would come from saving money on operating costs. To make these improvements, the city would need to spend about $43.9 million upfront. Over
20 years, the technology is expected to bring in about $153.5 million in additional water bill collections and about $2.9 million in operating savings. To help pay for the project, PSI also offered a financing
plan through Bank of America. Under this plan, the city would borrow about $44.8 $8 million or so and use the money it expects to gain from the new technology to repay the loan. The loan payments would be about $3.94
million in the first year and about $3.93 million each year after that. The loan would last 17 years and would have an interest rate of 4.394%. By the end of the loan, the city would
have paid about $22 million in interest for a total repayment of about $66.8 million. What this all really means, because it is a lot of math, especially for me, is that the city has an opportunity to upgrade its water meter system in a way
that could pay off over time. While the project would require a large upfront investment, the new technology is expected to help the city collect more water revenue and reduce some operating costs. Over the long term, that could mean millions of dollars in added
revenue and savings. But this is really one of those items where I highly encourage you to watch the recording of this meeting because the presentation highlighted some important implications including the fact that we may not even collect on some of this money and how the debt could actually impact our
capacity to get a bond to fund the new water plant. And you can hear directly from representatives of PSI who made a presentation articulating how they believe this new program would benefit the city. Redwood CPDEV LLC will enter into negotiations with the city of North Miami to modify the development plans
associated with the Claude Pepper Park project. The discussions will address updates to the existing agreement, conditional use permit, and conceptual site plan to support the project's progress. Specifically, the city wants to remove Redwood's obligation to build
a pool in exchange for their financial investment in upgrading our facilities and contributing towards our capital improvement projects. Modifications were approved to the restrictive covenant for the property located at 750 Northeast
125th Street, allowing updates to the conditions for open air dining on adjacent public space. In 2016, the owner of Museum Plaza LLC, this is pretty much Mocha Plaza, entered into an agreement with the city of North Miami
that allowed the restaurant to use part of the nearby public right of way for outdoor dining. subject to certain conditions. Since the property was sold in 2020 and the current restaurant tenant has asked for some updates, the agreement now needs to be revised. The
proposed changes would remove the rule requiring tables and chairs to be taken in every day and add a rule requiring menu boards and promotional signs be removed daily. The changes provide greater flexibility for the property owner's use of the public right ofway
while supporting outdoor dining and business activity in the area. Because the original agreement requires city council approval for any changes, it had to be brought for a vote. A site plan was approved for a three-story 16-unit
apartment building at 550 Northeast 127th Street in District 3. The project includes 26 ground level parking spaces on approximately 38 acres. The development supports additional housing in the area while complying with the city's land
development regulations and contributing to continued growth and redevelopment. If you ever need to know more about what took place during any city meeting or you're interested in listening to what discussions took place, feel free to visit our website to watch the entire
meeting for yourself. If there's anything that me or the office of the city clerk can do to better serve you, just let me know. I can be reached at 3058959817 or you can email me at city clerk@ northmiami.gov. And if you happen to be on social media,
as you probably are right now, go ahead and leave me a comment. Let me know if I can expect to see you at the next council meeting. See you next time. North Miami Council meetings take place at 700 p.m. on the 2nd and fourth Tuesday of every month in the North
Miami City Council chambers located on the second floor of City Hall. If you're unable to attend a meeting in person, you can watch it live on channel 77, the city of North Miami's YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Vimeo liveream. If you're interested in obtaining a copy of
the agenda, please contact the office of the city clerk at 3058959817 or city clerk@northmiami.gov. The agenda can also be found on the city's website at www.northmiami.gov.