Miami Beach, Florida

To the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee meeting which is serving as the budget workshop. We don't usually do the Pledge of Alleg iance in committee meetings but we have the whole body here. We got quite a nice crowd in the in the gallery so Jason and Tamika you're working hard on this budget why don't you take it away. Thank you to all my colleagues for for being here before I turn it over to our chair Commissioner magazine just wanted to thank Eric Jason Tamika for this process one of the things that we do there's a series of budget meetings that we have very transparent open to the public documents are available to anybody who has the interest in reviewing them and dig esting them but we also do this in the public and go through the items and as we final ize the budget we we are being very intentional with our spending as we showed which we showed our community in Miami Beach last year returning surplus funds lowering our Miami Beach millage rate and as we know there could be some some cuts coming from the state and the county certainly with the property tax voter referendum looming so this and I'm very proud of our Commission because we are very focused on the core services that we as government need to provide and strengthening public safety maintaining a clean city beautiful public spaces and investing where where residents see real value and we're doing that well we're doing that for the most part I hear a lot of positive feedback from our residents and businesses and we need to continue that potentially with less so we're as we go through this process we're looking to leverage the city's assets infrastructure real estate partnerships private partnerships revenue opportunities and we're one of the things that I love and through your all of us but through your stewardship Commissioner magazine is looking at our government as a business government often gets criticized for not being lean as a business would be and our government is is is doing that we are looking ourselves as how we can maximize even though we don't have shareholders we do have residents that we need to account for so I'm proud that we're doing that and we'll continue to do that obviously if anybody has any questions we can reach out to us but I think this these budget workshop workshops in the public and all of us all seven of us coming to a committee meeting shows the level of importance that this takes want to commend you commissioner magazine for leading this is not an easy committee that none of the committees are easy to lead but certainly as we're trying to to do more with less it becomes a challenge but we're steering the ship in the right direction so thank you commissioner magazine and take it away yeah thank you mr. Merritt's an honor to serve as the chair of this committee it's an honor to serve as an elected representative of Miami Beach truly think it's the best city in the entire world I appreciate our city staff I know this is a long and robust process but it's also one of our most important processes that we have collectively as a city and especially as an elected body here I don't know if there's a greater responsibility than how to spend taxpayer dollars I spoke at a panel representing our city in New York City this past week and I said anytime we think about how to spend taxpayer money we must always ask why can we be more efficient with this dollar than the taxpayer could if they kept that any type of service we provide why can the city do it better than if we actually didn't tax our residents I think that should be kind of our threshold across the board anytime we 're allocating dollars to programs to events to services why can the government do that better than if we let the residents actually keep that themselves I'm very proud of this commission this isn't just me that this isn't even just our finance committee collectively all seven of us have have probably focused more on fiscal matters over the past several years than any commission certainly since I've lived in Miami Beach and the results speak for themselves we've rolled back the mill age rate for the first time in over ten years we've returned to surplus two to our taxpayers for the first time in over 20 years. However, that can't be a one-time thing, right? And we've talked a lot about the way that our taxpayer, I'm sorry, the way that our property values were growing was not going to be at a sustainable rate. We were very blessed to see property tax growth in the double digits, in the high single digits, and we just know it's part of any type of economy. Growth rates aren't going to maintain that level. We are fortunate, I'll let our CFO give the exact numbers, where we are managing a declining growth as opposed to managing property values that are actually down. And as the mayor pointed to, this budget cycle, and perhaps budget cycles going forward in the future, is going to be with some degree of uncertainty about property tax reform in Tallahassee and how that will have a further impact on our local budget here. I'm glad that we have not only foreseen that coming, but even if that hadn't been coming down the pike in years past, we have decided to proactively be focused on that and will continue to do so regardless of how that ballot measure actually turns out of the ballot box or not. I'll turn it over to our CFO. Thank you for the work that you and your team have done. We're going to have some robust discussions here today. And I don't want to say unpleasant, but there's going to be matters that we can't just sweep under the rug. I don't mean to steal the thunder here, but essentially to maintain a flat budget, our property values came in below that. And we essentially, you'll word it much better than I, but where our initial property assessments came out at, we're facing a deficit that we essentially have to manage to. And if we essentially manage also to a legislative issue that we all passed, we'll have to deal with an even further deficit right now. One of my gripes that I've had with the way our budget process has worked is a lot of the focus has always been through the budget process on what is just called enhance ments. And to the layperson, this took, despite all my time sitting in these meetings until I actually was in this position. I didn't appreciate what that meant. Let's say round number wise, we have a billion dollar budget. And every meeting or any opportunity that there is residents want something we have initiatives as an elected body and we could pass something that is above and beyond what already exists in our budget. That could be a new park. That could be a new program that we put in place or even new employees or a headcount. That is called an enhancement to our budget. That is less than generally 1% or 0.5% of our entire budget . Last year, I think that number came in around $30 million in a billion dollar budget. And we had to essentially manage down to spend a couple million dollars of that. However, we're sitting there spending all of our time exhaustively on that 1% of new funding. And we never really take a look back to see, well, how about in that billion dollar budget? Is that the right size ? Is every dollar that is being spent in that being spent effectively, efficiently? Are there areas where we could actually save? Because I'd like to think all of those programs we put forward were very resident driven. New parks. We had to go out to Sunset Isles and say, I'm sorry, we can't fund your park. We had to go out and say, I'm sorry, we can't fund this playground. However, we never took a look back into, you know what? Are there cost savings in that billion dollar budget that we are not looking at? And that's why we had a legislative item that gives a lot more granularity this year into our budget, almost line item by line item. So you could see where every dollar is being spent. And for this upcoming meeting, I'm actually introducing legislation to have the administration work on initiative to have a publicly accessible portal that will show where every single dollar of taxpayer money is being spent. down to printing paper, down to cameras that are being purchased, down to money that we spent, down to employee travel. This is taxpayer money that we're using, and we should be accountable to the taxpayers for every single dollar. So with that, Jason, thank you for the work you and your team have done. I'll let you kick things off. Thank you, chair. So today is the we started off this budget process with the commission back in May at our retreat. So today is our first public workshop. The focus of today is our capital budget. So we will start off with a very short update on the operating since we got the June 1st valuations on there. So just a couple of slides just kind of let you know where we landed with property values from June 1st. And then the meat of this discussion will really be on the capital budget. So we can bring up the first presentation. Thank you. So as I say, we're going to start off with property values. So property values came in at a overall 3.5% increase in the city's taxable values. That is our preliminary values provided by the tax appraiser. On June 1st, we will get the final and certified role with which has a lot more detail in it on July 1st. So there's just a couple examples there. Norby Shores is one of the city's special taxing districts. It is doing very well up in Norby Shores. We have city Miami, Miami Dade County are doing a lot of the city's tax ing districts. Norby Dade County are doing a little bit better than us. And then Sunny Isles we put on there just to kind of show another large condo heavy beachfront community. So we're doing a little bit better than that. But let's dive a little bit into the 3.5%. So first just showing the trend, I think as our chair had mentioned, as we've predicted, and that has kind of played out the trend of decreasing increases. So we're not in a decreasing property value situation. We 're just in a decreasing one. So we were at 6.9% last year and we're down to 3.5%. So again, always being prepared for the future, making sure we make good, reasonable decisions going forward. And some of the detail is our existing values. So existing properties went up by 2.6%. Again, kind of that same decreasing trend. And then the more sporadic is the new construction. So we added about $500 million worth of new construction, kind of above the overall trend line going back, you know, 20 some years, less than last year, but still it helped bring us up from the 2.6 to the 3.5%. Jason, can I ask your team for the next meeting to have an analysis that 0.5 billion dollars, $500 million of new construction as a percentage of our overall accessible values, how that compares to both the city of Miami and Miami Dade County that you mentioned there. So the new construction into what percent increase is in our overall tax value as related to the county and city of Miami, not the increase, the absolute value. So the what they're new construction. Jason, what their new construction values are. Yes. Yes. Jason, I think I might have it here, but I'll let Tameka get started on this. All right. So this slide basically takes us back to our retreat presentation back in May. And in May, we went through some of the details of what happened with our revenues for the 27 budget and our expenditures. It showed that we had an initial gap of $21.4 million and then we recommended the excess funds for 27 that we have projected right now for resort tax be transferred here. So at the retreat, we said we estimate a preliminary gap of 17.7 million. And that's before we got the property values on June 1st. So this slide shows what we would typically share with you right after the June 1st values. We did pick up $10.2 million in property tax revenues, assuming we were going to accept those and keep the millage rate flat. If we go with the millage rates staying flat, we would have a gap of $7.9 million. And this is an estimate. So we will come back with real numbers once we have the July 1st values. We've been updating both our revenue projections and our expenditure projections based on our Q2 projections which were done after May. And so the important takeaway on this slide is I know we're going to, we will be delivering as requested by the commission a rollback rate budget, which Tomiko will get a little bit on the next slide. But this is the floor. So when we go through our budget exercise in July, at the very minimum, we will be needing to, you know, be about a $7.9 million reduction in expenditures again refined. And before to me, he gets on to answer your question. I have that data here. So we were around $500 million. The city of Miami was about 1.86 billion. And the countywide was about $5.1 billion total taxable about new construction. Miami D County had about $5.1 billion. And that was the countywide increase for new construction and city of Miami had 1.86 billion in new construction compared to our about $530 million. value maybe if there's somebody on your team out there listening that could just run that as a percentage of the respective accessible values right so they on a percentage basis so this I just takes us back to the rollback rate so back in December the Commission did ask us to present so we don't have the correct calculation for the rollback budget we will have that once we have the July first values so we left it as in the revenue stay flat the property tax of revenue stay flat which would bring us back to 17.7 we have a little footnote saying that we think based on the new construction values would pick up about 2.4 million dollars in revenues and so if we applied that we'd be at a 15.3 million dollar gap again this is preliminary preliminary we'll have the real numbers when we get the July first values so then I'll just show you where we are with the millage rates right now so the top operating or total general fund is really just showing the existing mill ages we won't have the rollback with the exact rollback millages until the we give we're given that by the county we'll have that for in July the really on takeaway here is just noting the voted debt service which is the general obligation debt there's a slight decrease because we kind of have flattish tax debt service but as the values went up by 3.5% it shows a slight decrease in there in normal years per the city's comprehensive financial policies and one of the ones endorsed by the budget advisory committee in any year in which the voted debt service would decrease to show flat millage we would show as part of the preliminary budget that being added to the capital renewal replacement budget to increase dollars being set up to the for capital renewal replacement but as we're presenting a preliminary budget based on the rollback rate we did not the city's comprehensive financial policies and one of the ones endorsed by the budget advisory committee in any year in which the voted debt service would decrease to show flat millage we would show as part of the preliminary budget that being added to the capital renewal and replacement budget to increase dollars being set aside for capital or replacement but as we're presenting a preliminary budget based on the rollback rate we did not reflect that so as a so we move forward the rollback rate we will add the waiver of that policy going forward so this one's a just an update so on the constitutional amendment and i think the chair and the mayor had touched on this so on june 2nd the legislature passed a ballot question that we'll all be voting for voting on in november so this is kind of an update we had an early update kind of back of the cocktail napkin that we distributed this is a more refined one so the omb department looked at the whole 54 000 taxable properties uh and kind of did an in-depth about as properties would um kind of value out as they went to 150 and 250 and so our estimate is now this constitutional amendment if it gets passed in november would not affect the budget that we're really talking about now which is the fy 27 it would affect fy 28 than fy 29 so uh our projection is it would cost the city's uh city's tax um property tax about 5.5 million dollars in fy 28 which is the the 27 values and another 4.3 million in 28 which would be fy 29 so we're looking at a total impact of around 10 million dollars if this uh goes into effect uh from our homesteaded property uh tax perspective so that 's something to keep in mind going forward is that uh even through this budget which we're obviously going to be looking at reductions we would have ones into the future uh and the second bullet wanted to point out which is one that's important because i haven't seen it talked a lot about out there is what the potential impact is of moving all the non-homesteaded from 10 to 5 percent caps because we know our homesteaded we're all at three percent and it kind of limits it limits the growth of government now moving from 10 to five in a year in which we're not homesteaded properties are going over five percent and we've seen that and you look at those past cycles it happens every couple years where we get over double digits the city could stand to lose up to 15 million dollars a year in potential growth this would not be an impact in lowering our taxes it's really limiting our growth so it would really just show it would hedge us in a little bit so we wanted to make sure that just to highlight that um for going and jason can we talk in plain english what that essentially means let's put uh other fees and revenues aside right but because the bulk of our uh budget comes from property property taxes right so even accounting for non-homesteaded properties essentially the maximum our budget could ever grow on an annual basis is five percent because it's legally mandated that we balance our budget and if hom esteaded properties are exempt and non-homesteaded uh the maximum increase is five percent per year besides maybe if properties trade hands and things like that that's around the edges catching you off guard but back of the envelope we've pretty much seen budgets in our city grow more than five percent per year correct the i think we had done a projection showing that yeah well last year we grew by six percent that included enhance ments that were added um and some reductions and this year as our csl we're at 5.4 percent so we're around about five um the maximum wouldn't technically be five because then the homesteaded properties are capped at three percent so you'd have to do an average right but as you had mentioned you know you obviously have the effect of due construction uh which is limited let's be honest in the city but the effects of new construction and then as you said which is probably one of the major ways that numbers would drive is when you have um you know the the transitionary situation of of our population as you have sales so you have a sale and it's two hundred thousand dollar property it's really a million so it loses that tax basis so so you'll have that step up there so but i would agree with you that again as i was saying this would if this constitutional amendment passes this would hedge in and limit the growth of the city's general fund and we have various employment contracts within our city that essentially show eight percent year-over-year growth right uh the current uh is i think we're speaking probably about the current cbas with our police and fire unions which have a five or four percent step with a three percent cost of living obviously those get renegotiated and i think there's one more year left on both of those contracts um so obviously cost of living at the very least would be something that we very closely looked at yes but not only cost of living right like if we just continue with the status quo we have major employee contracts that are growing at eight percent per year and if this passes the maximum we can ever grow our budget even if property values max out is five percent that is a very serious delta there because that money has to come from somewhere right so that will be further reductions to other services or amenities that we are offering our residents point being back to the point i made at our last meeting we cannot address this without having examining some of our salaries employee headcount and things like that and i know we're going to get into the capital budget but i 'd really like if we have time to come back and start having preliminary conversations i know you're not fully prepared for so i'm not asking for it to be etched in stone but just for all of us to prepare for the conversations and decisions that are going to need to be made that can't be made just at one operating budget meeting we can't walk away from here saying you know what we actually have to manage to a 17.9 million dollar deficit we'll talk about that later we have to start getting on the same page about how we're going to essentially move in that direction so after the capital portion of this i know you don't even have a presentation prepared we we don't need to rely on you i'm catching you off guard but we need to start as legislators start having those conversations about where we are effectively going to manage an 18 million dollar deficit okay so the preliminary resort tax just a very quick update on the resort tax so as i think as many know over the past couple of years we've kind of been in a plateau kind of situation year over year hasn't really been much growth maybe a slight decrease slight increase but we've started to see that change this fiscal year where a number of the months have been record years i'm sorry record months so we are projecting that trend to uh continue a bit and taking that into account um we are projecting to have a surplus of 3.7 million dollars in the resort tax of which you know the recommendation is to move all of that over to the general fund which is permitted and that is already taken into account with the earlier projections we were giving you with the 17.7 million dollars so okay so next we're going to get into the meat of today's matter which is on our capital budget i just wanted to go back for miami the percentage of the new construction of total value is 1.7 uh for miami beach it's 0.8 percent and the first of miami and the last one is mi ami day county it's 0.9 so we're close to miami and this is what percentage new construction growth is of overall accessible valuations so when we talk about how we grow and if there's over development and things like that we are growing through new construction significantly less than the city of miami and miami county county right and that goes a long way into revenues that we're raising or lack thereof that are funding some of the amenities that we would love to offer our residents so so miami beach is 0.8 percent miami-dade county is 0.9 percent and city of miami is 1.7 percent so that okay so that is the percentage of what new construction is of their total taxable value taxable value other total taxable values okay all right and i would just put it put into that context you know it's obviously very different jurisdictions you know miami beach is only seven square miles of land miami-dade county is 1900 square miles of land without historic districts you know city of miami i think city of miami is like 30 something square miles of land so we have much unlike some of these other jurisdictions we have much more limited area of growth which is why i think it's always so important whenever we talk about areas where we want to preserve we always need to talk about areas where we want to encourage the growth because they rely on each other preservation cannot exist without identifying the right areas for for for the growth but i think but that's important context with those numbers um because obviously we need that new construction value but we're also very unique in that we have historic districts that we have to protect them like many of these other areas of the the county so we'll get into the primary capital budget all right so the capital budget is a you know official policy document it's actually uh two large books uh with over 800 projects it is a five-year plan so it starts in fy 27 moving on to fy 31 the numbers that we're going to talk about today are our recommendations just for fyi 27 budgets so our process started in december so in december all the departments worked with their teams to submit their capital budget and their operated budget requests we've had a series of meetings between omb and the departments between the city manager and the departments and then we did do a brief update at the may retreat and then today we're going into the details of the overall capital budget so that's june and july we'll have a second meeting meeting in july on the 17th and if there are any updates on the capital budget between this meeting and then we'll present those and in august what we do is prepare the actual proposed budget you will see every line item detail of the capital budget in those two large books and then in september we're going to have two public hearings to adopt both the operating the capital budgets so the table that you'll see next is a summary of all the funds and all the total dollars requested what we're recommending and what's left unfunded so a total of 256 million dollars of funding was requested amongst all the funds here we recommended just under half of those projects to be funded and the remainder is a little over half the biggest group that we funded was utilities that's where the biggest needs are we did as much as we could with the water and sewer and storm water using the dollars that we do have there are a lot of projects that are pending to be funded based on future discussion on the water and sewer rate increases so we just wanted to give some insight onto how we made recommendations uh what we did when we prioritize the projects that you'll see now what we try to do is focus on the renewal and replacement of our existing capital assets using our crr and we also use our p ago dollars to fund existing projects as well projects that have gaps we try to allocate funds to projects that have uh are eligible for grants we want to put aside the match dollars in the event that we do receive the grants we do have some older bond dollars not just in the you know parks and uh police funds but we also have um parking bonds so what we try to do is scrape all those dollars those usually come about when projects get closed and there's some leftover dollars or interest income and so we try to use all those dollars before we use our city's crr or pago dollars and then we have a lot of special revenues and enterprise funds and so we try to allocate as many of those dollars to those projects as possible let me just speak about a couple of the capital funding strategies so the first one is the ongoing commission's uh uh policy about the golf courses so as the golf courses have finally moved into the black over the past couple of years any surpluses that the golf courses have generated have been transferred back into their capital program to fund uh their capital projects including the very major uh my beach golf course renovation as we've been able to fund that in pieces through the years and we project it with this uh fy 27 allocation and probably what we're projecting extra surplus in the 26th we should be able to get that project finally across the finish line and then the second one is a very important one uh this is a one that's we followed for the past two years and is now part of the city's uh comprehensive financial policies which was kind of the examination we we took at ferk where we uh made a determination to try to move away from volatile revenue sources so which is interest income uh to take that away from the operating side and move that to the capital so as we've increased it we're now at 35 percent for the 2027 general fund to move that interest income so that's an extra 3.4 million dollars we've taken away from operating expenses and moved it over to our capital this year we we put those towards the pay go and we will go through some of the detail on that but first so this is the list we've been tracking throughout the year any item that commission approved by resolution on this list to be considered for funding in the fy 27 budget process so between this slide and the next that next slide that has the items that are still in the committee it's over 30 million dollars of requests that we were asked to try to prioritize this year and we funded about 22 million of these projects here so the items that have a check mark you will see them as we go through the for coming slides if it has a check mark we are recommending funding those projects the only one we aren't recommending fully funding is the second item how we funded all we could on the stormwater side there are some shortfalls on the water and sewer funding side if i may on this item mr chair on on that slide um thank you um as it relates to we're we're going to be investing dollars uh capital dollars into the flamingo park uh football stadium re-turfing it is my understanding though that we're going to be re-turfing the stadium however that's not going to address the flooding that that occurs uh in the park i think my understanding and i think we're speaking with cip that traditionally when you do some of that work there would be some drainage issues perhaps dealt with on the field but if there are drainage issues or flooding issues uh ancillor on the side that would be a separate uh issue i just want to make sure before we move forward in investing 1.4 million in capital dollars into into uh re-turfing this area if there is a need to address underground infrastructure as it relates to flooding uh and i have heard over the years um of ongoing flooding situations when it rains on on on that football field that we just don't spend 1.4 million dollars to later have to rip that out and do underground infrastructure so i'd want us to be mindful of that yes i'm commissioners um the mayor this is a re-turfing project only it's like a carpet replacement and how long it what is the uh the what was it called the useful life of of that turfing the we have such high use our warranty lasts about six or seven years okay and within over the course of those six or seven years are we going to be going back and doing any infrastructure projects i just don't want us to to spend money on something that we 're going to rip out in the future so if if i may um john please correct me if i'm wrong but this is really just laying down turf it's like rolling up carpet and then rolling down new carpet and tacking it into place it's carpet replacement if if we needed to do any underground work out there we could roll this back up do whatever work and then roll it back out yes sir thanks john thanks uh city manager so the flamingo park track is a safety hazard as it stands right now because there's actual divots in the track for folks that use it whether they play soccer or football it's really a risk that they could injure themselves by sp raining an ankle so unfortunately to your point commissioner fernandez it's absolutely we need to do the underground drainage but we can't wait on this too much longer because someone's going to get injured on that field and it's really a safety risk so you know i don't know how much longer it will take us if we 'll have to wait another 10 years to to recarp it if we do the the underground drainage work too but it's right now as it is it's a safety risk and there are hundreds and thousands of people that play on that field whether it's soccer or um football we have kids that play there every single day and and it's at this point it's a safety risk so it i would like to urge my colleagues to get that funded i have a question joe if that's okay guys it's time i'm not approving every time somebody needs to speak to speak listen it's been two and a half years of training it's gotten beaten into us all right gloves are off no i'm kidding um so here's a dumb question and i know we don't have money for this but as how big of a project is the infrastructure underlying because when we're talking about moving the fire station which eventually i'll get over but it's not today um when we were talking about moving the fire station one of the issues was that that that corner the southeast corner flooded all the time and it was a known thing like is it something that can be addressed by installing a portable pump is it something and that would address most of the underlying issues is it something where we need to rip up the entirety of the field how big of an infrastructure undertaking is this is it possible that we prioritize this as well knowing full well that we're talking about not spending money but if we have hundreds of thousands of people using this facility every year running and throwing and kicking balls it seems like it is becoming a bigger liability than we would like it to be so i'll take a first stab at that and i welcome john to to weigh in above and beyond what i'm going to offer but i do know that typically when we're designing park facilities we'll design some green space areas to accept the runoff from other areas of the park where it might be more critical to keep dry for the patrons and so that northeast area or southeast area sorry southeast corner of the track um is probably designed to be the water retention area during a heavy rainfall event um and i don't know of instances where that water sits for more than you know six or eight hours before it's it's dissipating into the soil i mean six or eight hours it's a pretty long time i mean if it's during a rain event i'm not worried about it if it's during a rain event right like it's if it drains a little bit more slowly than the rest of the park that's one thing if it's the next day and the track is usable but for that area that's an issue because people shouldn't necessarily be out doing laps in a major thunderstorm it's not safe anyhow so i i think for purposes of the conversation we need to get a better understanding of is this how it was intended to work is it not working the way it was intended to or is this actually just a failure of the infrastructure because it's outlived its useful life and that's not a trick question that's not me like being you know getting my claws out i'm just saying what's what's the scope of the issue is it that that is actually working the way it's supposed to and people just don't realize it because they want to be able to use the track immediately which is one conversation versus it something broke and we haven't dealt with it yet and that's another conversation there could be 12 points along the continuum so um to get a better understanding of that to better understand what makes sense um you know we 've got fifa here i would have loved to have have had fifa pay for the whole thing which i know they couldn't do whatever but down the road this is the only place where our kids play soccer and football right so um we're trying to encourage more families moving to miami beach because we have great facilities and if one of the preeminent facilities in our city is underwater more than it's designed to be that's something we should probably look at going forward and those are legitimate questions and those are things that we can very easily look at by going back and looking at data that we have and and see if there's anything that's an anomaly or something that needs to be checked out we have we have a lot of capabilities that we could implement there and and see if there's something that needs to be addressed long term and bring that back to you at the next workshop yeah that'd be great and also maybe it's a short-term thing like we've got a plan for five years down the road we're going to do a whole revamp of it and in the meantime we have a portable pump that will address the issue you know right away and it won't take up a big footprint and you know we can we can put the turf down now because we can roll it up when we do the big repairs in five years and then everybody walks away happy so it would be great to just get more information eric is there is there an actual project to address the drainage in flamingo park so there is a geobond project that addresses the powell building that is in flamingo park and it's very close by to this would probably end up having to look at what drainage is in the area as part of that project but right now there's no standalone drainage project for flamingo park for the for the tracking field right there should be one that's obviously an issue well so if i may we're getting we're now getting the information we'll figure out what the issue is if it's just expectations don't match reality or if reality is no longer suitable and we'll figure it out and let's just get more information so we can proceed accordingly please can you make sure that before you purchase you can actually roll up the turf and then put it back and that's that's the manufacturer is designed for that yes sir i will confirm huh i will confirm if i may um one last comment because this is my item and i'm actually very passionate about this i invited the beach high football coach here to the meeting so i'd like to ask that he come up real quick to talk about um beach high football and the conversation that he and i had um six nine months ago about this field um and it's so important to me because it's not it's not just the tie football uh it's not just those kids it's every child and adult that comes to this field to play and coach wilkie thanks for being here if you would like to speak a little bit about the conditions on the field and what you had said to me that day that i did the walk through on the on the field and some of your concerns right absolutely uh first of all i want to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to speak today and i apologize my attire i literally just came from practice uh with the kids so my name is wookie perez i 'm the miami beach head football coach i'm also the founder of miami beach flag football that we've had over 40 participants little boys and girls within only a year span um and i agree uh we live in in the greatest city of the world and i love saying that uh i've been a resident for over 20 years here in mi ami beach and for for we have beautiful beaches nightlife and everything but for me personally the best part of this city is our community and my son went to south point elementary nautilus now he's going to go to mi ami beach senior high and i see kids playing there all the time i've been training in that field for over 20 years we actually trained the heisman first round draft pick everything on that field so there's a lot of great things that have happened in that field and our kids play there all the time for me personally and i reached out uh to and and she and she went and walked the field with me and we saw these holes right before a football game and i told her and i said look i don't have the heart to see these kids play here and get an injury if anyone here has an injury of like a knee your ankle anything that you've had an injury prior to sports i just don't have the heart to see a kid have an injury because we didn't do our part so that's why i wanted to speak up as a as a coach as a citizen and my mission is to have miami beach one of the greatest we're in the greatest city why not be in the greatest sports city where when you think of miami beach you think of great football team you know great flag team and other teams as well and that's our community that's what we do for our community so i just i want to thank you so much for allowing me to come and speak on on our community behalf but i i agree i think it's something that's extremely important i understand in terms of the flooding i experienced that ourselves we canceled three games this year because of the flooding because we got there and the flooding was there so i i obviously i'm just a coach i'm not an expert in the budgeting part and i trust you guys that you you'll make the right decision but kids getting hurt matter that's all i'm going to say it doesn't matter for me and that's as far as i go because that's as much as i know but i just i i think we should protect our kid our community and have those kids have fun and i hope we can we can make this happen thank you coach thank you for all you do for the community hopefully what's been conveyed here you see that we are committed to fully funding the resurfacing of the flamingo park field none of us are experts here we initiated the conversation eric if you and your team can come back and say the steps in which we do it if it should be part of a broader uh resiliency upgrade or if we can do this in kind of a stepped process as planned um you know and we can uh discuss that in time happy mr magazine and and and by the way like uh i mean you guys have done an amazing job in the city i'm really proud of living here and it's safe for our kids and uh i thank you all for for doing that as well so thank you and thank you coach and i just want to explain you know my comment was never to question the need of this but what we don't want is for you to have to continue canceling games because of flooding you know obviously we all support the re-turfing of of the field but then what good is the re-turfing if you're having to then cancel the games because we haven't provided the proper infrastructure to avoid the flooding absolutely but i want to add to that though but we also i i'm worried and i don't i'm not saying that anybody's suggesting this but i just don't want this to now get stalled because we're now going to roll out a larger infrastructure we can do both we can re-turf and then look at the infrastructure and do that because this the the turf only has a how long because of our high traffic it only in about six years we're going to have to redo it anyway and if we can indeed roll it up we can redo it i just want to make sure that that turf um gets redone ideally after football season this year yeah i'll just jump in i i'm with you mon ica i think that's absolutely what needs to happen and in the interim like i said again eric not to step on your engineering toes but portable pumps work wonders and maybe that is the interim step between now and figuring out how deep the infrastructure issue is and what the timing is and all that so that you don't have to cancel games so it's not just you guys at high school it's the travel soccer team it's the juniors and the you know the seniors hockey team it's all it's all of it so um i think this is a great conversation to illuminate all of the issues i think we're not to speak for anybody else but i think we're all committed to um re-turfing asap pending the confirmation of what you believe to be accurate that we can actually just roll it up and put it back down as we need to um and i don't think anybody has the appetite to delay anything to ensure that nobody gets hurt i mean you're already playing sports you might twist an ankle or break a leg anyhow which is part of the game but we don't want to do it because it's something that we didn't do okay appreciate it thank you so much thank you and uh this is just the slide that shows the projects that are still in committee we did recommend the muscle beach in north beach that was a priority for commission last year it was on our cip and so we recommended one in that one to make it can you just i'm sorry can you just go back one side here to the previous one please oh sorry oh jason sorry um does a bus really cost 35 000 so we checked with the parks as an initial estimate and they're going to rework those numbers but that's the submission so thank you for asking that because i was under the impression maybe i'm thinking of a different bust i thought we owned the bust and this was just for the pedestal i think it was donated it was supposed to be donated to the city yes the bus was donated but we walked with the donor and you know this is a to be respected in the button in the pedestal that they're we're going to build is quite large it's wrapped in keystone it should be viewed at a certain height um with the engineering and whatnot it's been estimated not to exceed 35 000 so that's the price that we we're going with for now so we don't have to come back for a budget amendment next year but we're going to but we're going to we'll competitively shop it out to get the best price we can so when we accept a donation i don't know if this is a legal question or an error question when we accept a donation that isn't for the full cost of an installation right the bus was donated but not the pedestal and the installation what are the can we put restrictions on how much we're going to spend for the rest of it because you know i i don't know hypothetically speaking the bus costs ten thousand dollars but we're spending three times the amount of the bus to um install it in a certain manner with a certain pedestal can we can we define those terms before we so those are all policy decisions if you want to tell us that you're only willing to spend ten thousand dollars to mount the bus we'll carry out those orders well i mean i don't think any one of us know how much it costs to mount a bus where did this 35 000 come from i mean just i mean i'm just just wondering is there is there a way to i mean i'm not i don't i'm not even completely sure i think i remember general jose somewhere san martinez see the peruvian general you're asking the wrong commissioner who was the sponsor of the item i believe it came from a committee from hispanic affairs committee um i mean is there a way to get that cost down i mean why why is it 35 000 how where will it be displayed um like the north the normandy area by the fountain is it i mean i'm looking at on google maps of the collins park bus this is the one going up to i know i know yeah just looking at the oh sorry pedestal and it looks like it's wrapped in tile and it has you know simple concrete foundation this doesn't look like 35 000. understood and it you know to answer the other questions this is certainly something i think could be value engineered that this estimate was based on you know a walk through a vision a concept that was then given for an initial estimate but if the budget is ten thousand dollars we will come up with a pedestal that represents ten thousand dollars yeah i i think i i don't want to shortchange anybody's vision of um and if i remember correctly this is argentinian because of the there's a connection to argentina up there if i i could be this up but i vaguely recall this conversation um the norm andy fountain area is already congested so i think having a larger bus a pedestal is probably complicated because we don't want to encourage people to get close to the traffic i think we need to and i i totally if i'm remembering the correct conversation i totally understand where the passion behind this is coming from and we're not trying to minimize any of that i think we just need to be a little bit more mindful about the space that it's going into and the look we're all going to be making cuts i know that other committees have talked about donating art and fundraising to um support the entire cost of the of the project so um you know maybe that's something that can be explored as well but i i think 35 000 for about a pedestal seems like a lot okay um are we getting direction to this is a split funded project it'll be fun it's funded i believe through north beach quality of life resort taxes about one half and one half is from a miscellaneous fund that's a little bit more open-ended but okay i'm sorry the funding source for the funding source for the pedestal of this bus is north beach quality of life funds there's resort tax yeah so it'll be in resort tax eligible areas so you know area that we're going to have okay and quality okay the quality of life funds from our resort tax fund what are other ways in which we can use those quality of life funds there are capital projects that are in resort tax eligible areas so usually it's gonna be a beach area 41st street you know a high traffic area with um restaurants hotels things along those lines so i think this was in the normandy uh fountain area which we found that we thought that was it i know i know this was a recommendation and a request from the hispanic affairs committee and you know i'm very very much inclined to make sure that there is proper and diverse representation in our public spaces of our of our community and the diversity of my community what what what what i have difficulties agreeing to is using quality of life funds in an area like north beach that has so many requests and so many needs i mean just today we were talking about two hundred thousand dollars of of of needs for crosswalks something to prevent collisions and fatalities and so i just i don't know i i have i have concerns you know in the order of prioritizing i just want to make sure that we don't have other quality of life issues when we get so many complaints from north beach that there might not be you know other needs in north beach where we might need to prioritize these dollars because i'm sure you know there can always be a benefactor and i'm sure we can always find the benefactor or a sponsor for for for the pedestal for the bus so we can fund some of our other critical needs that the community has where their quality of life in north beach well if i may if the interest is to have a lower budget and not use those funds the split funding 16 336 was out of a miscellaneous um old cdt fund that so the budget could be maybe dropped to the 16 336 there and the 18 000 and change in the north beach quality of life can be transferred over to the one major project that we weren't able to fully fund which was the security bollards on the beach walks you see the security ballers on the beach walk is that is something that we hear about in north beach and throughout our community so you know we can value engineer reduce the budget and then free up north beach quality of life fund dollars so that we can address issues that our residents are raising to us then i think it's a win-win so we can reflect that when we get to those individual funds i'll make a note of that to you know make sure we get consensus on that but that's that sounds like a good idea okay so we'll put it back up and then yeah and then we were getting started on your funding sources can you go back to the muscle beach slide sure last time we discussed this there was a discussion of maybe getting a sponsorship for the equipment where did where is that john that that item is still at uh ferk uh to be heard i've spoken with uh with the sponsor of that item uh this is another one that would be a north beach quality of life element it says it's a beachfront uh kind of project and the idea would be they could still he wanted to still continue having that discussion at ferk with the parks department uh and if there was an availability to find sponsorship either two ways is either you could build a bigger project or you could supplement funds out and just not utilize all the three hundred thousand dollars and that was the plan i just don't see how that is going to cost three hundred thousand dollars i mean it's just a container with with weights that you know we just purchased actually um i mean is this more of like the art component of muscle beach or is it the actual equipment yes this this this project's been around a while that goes back to 2025 um committee and we were we were proposing more than just a container to somewhat replicate what we have in south beach up in north beach yes sir we could do just a container for less than 300 000 and to answer your question about where are we with the sponsorship there was just a meeting monday with a potential sponsor um they are going to run through all of the options and come back to us to see what they can bring to the table i don't have a number to present to you today so we'd like to keep this in in the funding but if we can get a sponsor in the meantime great and if you'd like to reduce the scope the commission would like to reduce the scope to a container we could reduce my question is was the three was the majority of the 300 000 the art component or was it the actual it was function functional equipment functional fitness equipment yes but on so the one in south beach is this beautiful italian design um i remember when it was installed i remember commissioner areola i think really pushed hard to get it so are we talking about basically doing another one of those up north beach aside from the functional container but also having something that is a beautiful installation yes if we go back to the original proposal which i'd have to see what we value engineered out of that it did include something similar to that and then all these different functional components um including a container because i will say that given the amount of development going on in north beach and the level of activity going on there and how crowded that community is becoming with people who are demanding more um i don't think we should be less than north and south beach and so does it have to be exactly the same thing as what was in south beach not necessarily but to just throw up a box full of weights isn't quite the right thing either and and i'm sure i mean we have high rocks here we have adidas here we have um all kinds of different waterpalooza here i would imagine between the three or one of them i mean we should be able to find a couple hundred thousand dollars from one of those companies to defray the costs if not pay for the entire thing we there was a promising meeting held this monday but again i'm not going to come until the money the money's committed i don't want to i totally understand that so um i i would be okay with holding this as a placeholder and working towards collectively working towards finding a a better source of of revenue to cover this and there will be in that item is at ferk so that that detailed discussion uh when parks is ready can come and whether it's again supplemental and add to it to have a bigger project or a substitutive and just reduce the city's portion will be something that we can be discussed at ferk plan okay thank you all right so we're going to get back and talk here about the funding sources all right so this is just explaining uh the attachment that's in your package it actually has all the details of the five-year plan um items that were funded previously as well as items that were recommending for fy 27 and for the next four years so as i said earlier we're only talking about the items that we are recommending but you have the list that you can go through between now and the next meeting if there are any other projects that you think we should be considering for recommendation and then we're going to start going through some of the individual uh major funds so our first is one of the most important the city's capital renewal and replacement fund uh was established as a standalone back in 2005 and it's used exclusively to provide dedicated funding to renew and replace meaning to fix the the items that we already have keep our facilities and our structures uh you know in good usable function um so though the preliminary values increased by 3.5 percent we did not increase the revenues coming in here because as we do the rollback we're using the same revenue structure uh as the prior year and then just um you know our you know we look through how we prioritize and you're looking at life safety criticality of continuing operations projects that have budget caps you know is it something beyond its useful life so we're recommending 4.7 million dollars worth of projects uh unfunded at around 10 million so we were able to identify about one-third of the needed dollars so here's a list of a few of the projects that this slide the next one has it so you're going to see it heavy on really nuts and bolts uh fixing up stuff you're going to have recertifications uh the unidad north shore a north beach oceanfront building uh structural work um window ceilings elevators can i can i stop you and this isn't a question for you do we do anything to raise revenue for or that is revenue raising for events at that unidad building i mean we're talking like a beachfront building with ocean views that is beautiful so i just asked about this um in terms of when the contract renewal is up because i know i've been approached by private organizations that want to do events they're not even like fancy events just community meetings no i'm talking about just community meetings and if it's not a community it's not a city requested event there's a minimal rental fee of three thousand dollars and that will that's crazy um and we don't have the our budget um our contract with them is out until tamika you got that information right no i don't know you didn't get somebody i can't remember who said information for me but it they oh i think maybe ozian facilities got it but the the um the contract is locked in for like as all of our natural lives basically and so i don't know why it's not being used for for rental events like that because it's such a great space for weddings and parties and events and i don't know and rick i guess this is a you question if we have the an opportunity to amend a contract in between when it is scheduled for renewal i think it's got four automatic renewals is it right now just used for lunch hole i'm not sure what the operation so i i'd say that over the years i know that unidad does rent out the facility uh to to people who use it at night and in weekends uh and i believe they also have you know staff that's available to make the facility um open i believe that they use uh those dollars as part to fund you know operations certain amounts of maintenance and the services that they offer at the at the senior center there uh so i do know it's being rented uh and i do know that that that that i believe they reinvest that money into the operations of the facility so who from the city oversees the unidad facility is that that's you guys yeah basically that arrangement is overseen by our um parks facilities fleet and beaches team um but the long-term contract is overseen by our asset management we have a uh it's i believe it's a management agreement with them but it is a city-owned facility obviously on city land so i obviously i'm not in front of unidad every single evening but i go past there an awful lot and i i don 't remember ever seeing when you not activated at night in the last few years doesn't mean that it hasn't been it's just that it's not a regular occurrence and so i don't know if there's an opportunity to have our business development or our parks and rec folks work with them to try to help elevate their game and do event management stuff i mean there's a whole industry all kinds of publications that list spaces to be used and maybe they're i mean their primary function is a senior center so why would they possibly know about event management or you know because that's not their that's not their primary function so maybe we can help them almost as if they're a new young business um to get them connected with people who will start using that as a venue site and and bring in revenue for them and you know elevate everybody and commissioner perhaps it might be a good idea uh since we're talking about just public assets that are managed through third party agreements um you know perhaps you know simultaneously on a dot maybe also the mdpl uh building uh these are all great uh public assets uh that we have that if we can help them you know in in their management of leases and activities you know that helps generate their funds to to subsidize operations and ongoing maintenance capital and renewal expenditures possibly uh but not just on it you know let's look at some of our other all of them yeah i think so i think that'd be a useful exercise to take an inventory of what we have and how they 're being used and can we help them generate more revenue i just don't want to single out on it because we have other aspects yeah oceanfront assets for sure and maybe we can get them in a room with the folks from the shane center because the shane center is out there as well yeah that would be great that's another great asset yep okay i just want to be brought to commission as a thing or can we just do that we can just do that okay i just want to comment quickly that i actually did attend a bat mitzvah at unidad um this was now three years ago maybe but it was a great bat mitzvah and so i'm sure cindy was the one that sold that to him as a great venue thank you cindy and john and um and i absolutely support this and encourage you know more folks to take advantage of this spot on the weekend unidad as well as mdpl and let 's see what we can do yeah we were joking i because i attended apartments for there and it's it is an underutilized space which i believe our convention center too as well but that's a separate conversation that i'll be bringing uh we'll be talking about probably a commission meeting but um there's a good conversation so thank you all right thank you bring it back up all right so just uh you know again more about nuts and bolts uh kind of renewal and replacement stuff and here's the the last one uh we got roof replacements at the pal building we got uh the the miami beach police department community center roof replacement the rotunda we did do a major structural project there which determined there was roof replacement needs there hvac work pool electrical improvements things along those lines and now we go into the pay as you go fund and that actually comes from a dedicated millage rate as well just like the crr we did not increase the revenues based on the increased property values we kept it flat at last year's number so that 5.9 in addition to the funds that jason mentioned the transfer of 2.6 million dollars for the golf courses as well as the 3.4 million dollars that we have an interest income and then we did have an additional 1 million dollars sometimes throughout the year we have projects that get closed out and we also get uh interest income as well so we had a total of 12.9 million dollars to allocate there was a request of 78 million dollars so we do have 65.9 million dollars that's unfunded we try to fund the projects that were most critical so for the slides moving forward if you see a blue font on the project it was on the list that we talked about previously and these were items that we were asked to consider funding in the 27 budget process so again another thing i would mention is that some items here say partial funding so for example the citywide bridges there is a current appropriation of about six million dollars already we were able to partially fund if later on when we get the july numbers and we have additional number uh funds we could come back and add funding to the bridges we also have projects that say that we either apply for a grant or they 're split funded split funded means that you see this project show up maybe once or twice twice or thrice in the process because we're using paygo funds here and we may be using some other miscellaneous fund to fully fund the project one of the biggest items we're funding here is a marine patrol dock improvements last year we were able to allocate i think it's about 93 000 and now we're actually allocating the rest of the project the second largest item that we're recommending is the final portion well almost the final portion for the golf course renovation we again have been using their own surplus i believe it's about 500 000 that's left unfunded and we're hoping by the end of fyi 26 that we'll be able to fully fund those projects to me and maybe this isn't a question uh for you but for the golf course when is the operating contract up for that uh yeah i'm just sit up front dude please yes sir i'm pretty sure it's september or october of 27 so we have a little over a year left and the discussion we're having with the tennis center made me think of this would it make sense to essentially as we're looking at different operators or management agreements say go out and have a new operator fund it or at least see what that proposal is it it certainly is something we could look at right now we 're under a management agreement which we different but we certainly as we're looking at having to re-advertise and maybe instead of spending two and a half million dollars of taxpayer money and albeit i get that it's due to the operations of the golf course but i'm not going to make that granular distinction here instead of spending two and a half million dollars of taxpayer money put that as part of the bid for the new operating agreement for the golf course okay we're offering a 10-year contract let's see the proposals what a two and a half million dollar renovation is going to bring back does that make sense so if i could um the two and a half million dollars is just the latest installment of what i believe is a nine million dollar renovation that we're anticipating um certainly we could structure it that way however it will require us to enter into a long-term agreement so that they can recover their course capital and it's going to mean that we're going to have a lot less control over what happens right now the city basically manages all of the budgeting and all of the decisions that happen at the golf course we have a third-party operator that handles the day-to-day but they can't do anything without saying mother may i to the city and there are a number if i may there are a number of major also capital projects that are planned in nor for the normandy golf course i think there's a couple million dollars coming up in a year or so for solar remediation that i've been speaking with environment and sustainability we'll have to move forward on as soon as we can which will be the next chunk of money probably for the 28 surplus we used and then we'll be setting aside you know the surplus of the of the golf course money for eventually the normandy course uh renovation which will be in five or six years correct yeah i mean can we do something to explore those conversations before we commit two and a half million dollars now and further money in the future i'm not saying i'm dead set locked into that but i a public private partnership all options should be on the table and the private sector essentially bearing those costs and then getting it back through a longer term management agreement it's certainly standard operating procedure in my mind so i guess the good thing is that we're kind of just setting this money aside it's not that we're putting it into a contract and locking it up um and so at some point in the future if we wanted to change our mind this doesn't overly tie our hands um and obviously we're always open to conversations um my fear would be that there would be folks that would want too much in return in order to front what's a public capital right what's that it's a it's a public procured bid right it's not just a bilateral bid where somebody has this over the barrel it's they were you know we put it out to an rfp i'll make a comment on that as well um of course i'd be open to hearing things i've been approached by developers about projects they're similar to what's going to happen at the nikki beach location the miami beach golf course in normandy are special our residents love it there's free parking the food is affordable and once you enter into a public private partnership all of that changes and not necessarily for the better i feel right what eric just met our city manager just mentioned is we still have control we lose that when we do uh ppp well isn't that what we're doing now we essentially have a somebody else management agreement so they they don't own part of it they're not building up but any rfp that would come they would want to build up at la um i'm not proposing building on the golf course at least the developer that came to me wanted to destroy what's there now build up and i was like no no i i haven't been privy to any conversation like that yeah you know i can imagine uh russell probably wanting a nice tower on the eighth hole but um you know certainly that's the pedal cords behind people's houses in front of people's houses yeah um i had never had a conversation uh about anybody wanting to do anything on the golf course i just thought all options on the table um and if this is the best way to go about it uh but i'd at least like to see with the contract expiring um agree we want to maintain uh a degree of control this is just essentially uh seeing if that would be possible that the manager operator would bear some of those costs and if it doesn't work it doesn't work and i think if i may um my recommendation and i'm kind of shooting from the hip here but if that was the way you wanted to go i would wait until we're ready to pull the trigger on the construction contract and then maybe look at doing a procurement for a design build operate maintain okay um design build operate maintain for the course itself because you're going to have um a major capital expenditure but then you 're also going to have a long-term operation operation and maintenance i'm just i'm just going to i'm just going to interject in there this golf course is in the heart of a residential neighborhood abutting every side or most sides of this golf course are single-family homes um and so and so i just want us to be very mindful of that i i think if at any point we're going to go in a different direction in operation uh management who our partner is in that golf course we first need to start with a town hall of the residents um and and the users of of the golf course uh people live right in front of them i live right in front of the golf course uh there's a lot of other people who live right in front of of the golf course um this is the first time commissioner dominguez that i'm hearing of there being a developer interested in taking over uh that that golf course for many years this golf course was operating in the red um this golf course is finally operating in the green i think both of our publicly owned golf courses are now finally operating in in the green and my understanding um just from my years in public services municipal golf courses usually don't operate in the green they're they're they're usually not good business models so right now we have a partner that that is handling this very well for the city generally i don't get complaints from residents on how our golf course is managed other than you know the straight ball golf ball that lands on people's yards and so as i just want us to be very mindful of the very unique location of this of this golf course um that you have residents and families that literally share property lines with this with this with this golf course and if something were to even be considered to be changed that it start with the residents um before we get into too much decision making yeah and to be clear this is what i was mentioning is exactly what we're going through at the north shore tennis center where there's an operator under a management agreement there and we are contemplating extending her contract and she actually makes the capital contribution for the construction of the cafe right so it'll be something like that where we would just see what the trade- off would be for something like that and eric is there i mean has anyone approached the city of any has there been any interest whether informal or formal conversations about any change to this property not that i'm worried if i can jump in on this um the golf course is a donald r oss design golf course and the reason i know this that it's a big deal is because when i moved here a thousand years ago my then husband is a nap is still an avid golfer and he was super thrilled about the fact that we were walking distance from a world-class golf course and that's what it is we shouldn't leave leave lose sight of that i don't know about the the original architecture you know the course design of the north shore the normandy course but the one in the heart of our city the one that people come to on vacation um is a world-class design golf course and both of them serve as community centers not just for the people who live around them but for community meetings of all stripes the food is good at both places it's accessible as somebody else mentioned um i you know do we want to find somebody else to operate potentially but i would never be supportive of seating any more control than we have now and um i was under the impression that these capital improvements were being generated by the revenue that they are so it's not that we're taking money out of the budget it's a question of the money could go to something else in the budget which i understand and is a very valid point um but i don't think that we should be overly hasty to find somebody else to operate um not to operate i would be very cautious about finding a new operator um because i fear that somebody would want much more than we would be getting in control in in return and the two million dollars or even the nine million dollars amortized over the next 30 years because that's how long these repairs and and reimagination should last at least um is is not a lot of money for a huge amount of benefit so my unsolicited two cents on that okay all right thank you all right let's not beat this to death because it was just a theoretical thing that i threw out and we could explore that in due time okay so we'll go back up to the um pago list all right so this is the the last of the list of pago projects i would just highlight the flamingo park stadium the turf that we talked about the majority of the funding is in pago there's another project for the normandy shores golf club that's coming from their surplus as well the polo park basketball court lighting that was a commission priority and then the monument island we did fund a portion last year and this is the final amount for the project and this is to have some rip raps around the island to prevent mooring on the beach okay so next we're going to go into the resort tax capital uh funds there's one for uh north beach south beach and mid beach so this is generated from the one percent of the resort tax on room on room rent s uh this is for eligible uses our our tourist related capital projects and that revenue that one percent is 60 transportation primarily the trolley system and then 10 to north beach mid beach and south beach and 10 percent uh for the arts so first we have the the north beach uh so we have the life guard uh towers uh cross braces uh that's there's a amount in every one of the three funds as we go ahead and do those replacements uh some money for alleyway restorations uh the beach walk bollards the north shore fitness center relocation muscle beach the kayak launch item 287 those funds will will not be added and those will be allocated up to project 283 which is the beach walk ballers and we'll make that note and then there's a few smaller dollars for rhythm foundation uh projects can you sorry i'm sorry can you explain what the north shore fitness center relocation is sure so right now it's on the second floor they're going to move it to the first floor and i'll let john explain why yes um the north shore parking center that is a dcf child care site and it has a lot of restrictions with co-mingling adults while the kids are in program so if we 're able to move that the down to the first floor we could have that amenity available to people more for more hours a day okay and there was an issue because we were audited with our sites a few months ago and some aftercare programs went away this would alleviate that issue yes we've resolved the licensure issues or we didn't have issues at north shore this would allow us to have that amenity available to the residents because right now we have to have a lockdown during certain times of the day okay maintain the licensure so here's a question because i i love this idea and also we are building a new world-class sports complex on 72nd street which in theory no pressure david gomez i'm looking at you no pressure at all but in theory shovel in the ground next year so and two years to build so does it make sense to spend three and a half uh three hundred fifty seven thousand dollars to cover us for three and a half years fair point on the move but we do need new equipment that equipment is very old it's time to replace that equipment either through a purchase or a lease okay so when we move to the new building will we take the equipment with us can it be designed so that we can move the equipment we we can do that yes because right now cip i believe is building us a shell for the fitness center all the equipment joker so he's doing the equipment what i don't want to do and i i'm not trying to cut services from community amenities but what i don't want to do is buy new equipment let's say it's 40 of the cost whatever it is buy new equipment today or in january and then in three years by have already paying for new equipment again so either find a way to bring to select the equipment for the the short term to be moved into the the long term or rethink this i'm not you see where i'm going with this because we're spending x number of dollars to buy something that the way i'm hearing it is just going to be replaced in three and a half years what exactly is it is it what exactly is the equipment it's your typical plate system you know you see any you know crunch crunch fitness la fitness you know you have the different plates the different upper body all the different body part workout stations what do you mean plates like it's the cable the cable plate with the pin well that should last 10 years not three years no it's not it's not it's not an issue of the equipment not lasting it's at the north shore community center complex the whatever we're calling it 72nd street complex is currently designed from what i'm hearing to include equipment already that that's already identified so why would we buy new equipment in place currently and then not need it in three and a half years so it's an issue of the equipment not lasting it's like we're buying it's a fair question the same thing twice basically if i may david gomas director of capital improvements the facility being designed for the 70 s shikin street community complex complex was always intended to be augmenting the services at the north shore community center specifically the fitness center was supposed to be a higher-end fitness center that i think is going to serve somewhat of a different different population they may or may not coexist with the same equipment of the same users it's up to the commission and the city on how we program it and how we use it when i asked about future uses for the existing facility i was told that there are no plans for it so now i'm hearing that it's planned to stay open we're going to have a community center a block away from a community center they're they're different uses for example the the 72nd street community center has the the aquatic complex it has the fitness center which is the it's always been described as a higher-end fitness center the existing community center has the tennis center has the the child care and daycare stuff so it's they don't necessarily overlap okay i mean the higher-end fitness center in a community facility at 72nd street it's not anatomy i mean we're not talking about some crazy super fancy cry ogenic gym so it's just a gym for residents okay so we're gonna have two gyms i i don't know if parks was programming to keep the existing one going or if they were going to merge them so we could probably use that if we're going to have a much better gym at 72nd street complex we could probably use the space in the north shore for something else correct if any if anything were to move from north shore to 72nd street the fitness center would be one of the top things that could move and then that that square footage could be used for a different type of right but commissioner bot ts saying is why why spend how much was it Yes, almost half a million dollars on something that may be not needed in a couple years. That is a fair point. If we were to open up in three years, open for business, I can see that. We could also take, but the equipment is old and we do expand use of the center by moving it to the first floor because we don't have those child care lockdown issues that we can work around by moving to the first floor. So you're not only getting new equipment that we need, we're getting extended use to the community. What I can do is look at a lease option. I was just going to ask you about that. I would rather lease it for a few years. Which is common. If it's exorbitant, then that's not great either because we 'll find a space for gym equipment, but let's look at leasing it. And also, what is the breakdown between the cost of expanding to the first floor versus the equipment? Like we've got a lump sum of 375. Is 75 of that moving 300 of that the equipment or vice versa? You know, so that makes a difference too. Yeah, I can break. I have that breakdown. I won't have you watch me go through my papers, but I can get that information. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. If I may, it seems like this project, this capital project is being requested to be canceled. And then an operating budget enhancement would be submitted by parks for relocation and a lease amount. And then we'll see if we're able to fund that separately through the operating budget. So we'll make a note of that. It was 350. We'll put it back up. 357,000. And we would recommend just like the bust, the project 283, the beach work bollards, security bollards would be where we would allocate those funds. So we will go ahead and... Can you tell me about the Rhythm Foundation, audio system, club deck and theater? Good afternoon. Adam Benuza from the Rhythm Foundation. I really should say Miami Beach Bandshell audio system, club deck and theater seating. But to give folks the overall picture on each of those items, the audio system is an update to our audio, the audio system that has been in the building. It has been in there since 2014, 2015, which is quite the feat as far as lifespan of high sensitivity, high tech electronic equipment on in an ocean side open open air venue. And so this would be an update to that system. What we're seeing here is also this price also reflects a very deep discount on the part of Meyer Sound System. This is the same sound company that works at the New World Center. It's sort of like the Ferrari of sound systems. We have... Does it replace it or... Replaces it. Yeah. What's the lifespan? The lifespan for this is eight years is the usable lifespan . The last one had a similar lifespan of seven to eight years . The expectation of it would be actually be lower given the operating conditions, but we were able to stretch it out to be 11 or like a year 12, 13 of that particular sound system. And what's interesting about this, what's noteworthy here is that we have convinced Meyer to come on as sponsors of the bandshell. So they gave... So they discounted the cost of this high... This is the latest technology that they're rolling out. They discounted it by over 50% with the understanding that the bandshell could become a case study, a sort of showcase venue for the sound company. So there's going to be some associated marketing on the part of Meyer to promote this brand new type of audio technology that they've created. So not only are we saving the city, saving the public dollars here through the sponsorship, we're also promoting the Miami Beach Band Show in the city of Miami Beach as a truly state-of-the-art performance venue. Does this tie into the broadcasts that you all do? No, this is separate. This is separate to this. This is a sponsorship directly with the sound company. No, but I mean the audio system. The audio system is tied to our broadcasts in as much as it 's part of our network of technology. This is basically the speakers that you hear the music playing from when you come to the venue. I mean, it is a music venue. Yes. That cannot operate without decent speakers. I mean, New World Center, New World Symphony, plays in one of the most acoustically sophisticated, well-designed audio facilities in the world. And we had just upgraded their outdoor speaker system to be better than it was for similar reasons. You just won, I don't remember the name of the award, but the Band Shell and Rhythm Foundation and New Deco Ensemble just won a very prestigious award for broadcast. A golden telly, it's called, and hopefully we'll add an Emmy to that list too, but we won't know until next spring. And it was a super, I happened to have gone to that performance. It was super cool. There were interactive elements. There was snow. There was scented air. There was amazing sound for the holidays. It was absolutely fabulous. And that doesn't work if you go to this amazing venue and the sound sounds like crap. That is correct. And so, you know, we're really happy that we've been able to extend the lifespan of the current system that we have as long as we have. That comes from a lot of maintenance, tons of maintenance, all of which the Rhythm Foundation has paid for all of that . And we think with this new system, it's going to sound better. It's going to bring us up to date with the latest technology. And as a part of the promise of this new point source technology, they call it, is that there's much greater control of the acoustic environment, meaning that you have better control of setting the limits of where the sound stops, controlling and containing the sound to within the ring of the band shell. Adam, can you speak to the other items too, please? Sure. And then the other items that we had up there was the deck ing. So in the band shell in the rear, there's an elevated deck, club level. So that request is to replace the top levels, the actual wooden decks. So not the structure of the club level, but the wooden decks where people walk. This is another one that has, it's coming to the end of its usable life. Of course, we very much keep it well maintained. And any time that there's a piece of the decking that is soft, we replace it. But it's about time for us to do a wholesale replacement of the whole top level of the decking. And then the other item on there is the theater seating. And that is essentially to help, is to purchase more chairs to replace our theater cell seats that have just, you know, are worn or broken down after five years of service. Okay, thanks. Okay. We'll put it back up. Jason, the kayak launch. Yeah. It's still closed from what I understand, right? I believe this is from a, sorry, John. I believe this is a secondary location item. And I think there was a commission action on this. Is this the same kayak launch at Parkview? It's not the Parkview one. No, it's different. This is another item that goes back to last year's committees that came out of committee with a favorable recommendation. And this budget request is to work on design and permitting for an alternate location because the Parkview Island one is closed. Just curious where, what location? It is 81st and Hopper. Very good. There's a pedestrian bridge. There's a city parking lot. And there's a city parking lot. And it's adjacent to the city parking lot. Have we done water testing there? Amy, I don't mean to put you. Yes. So that's clear. My colleagues. And water quality looked really good. Quick question. Where are we with the implementation, the funding? The funding for the nanobubbles technology. Because I understand we submitted a permitting to the county, a permit application to the county. And we're waiting to hear back. And that should not, from what I understand, we're not talking about years, like so many environmental things that take years of regulatory review before it gets approved. This was supposed to be an approval within a few months. Do we have the funding in this proposed budget for the implementation of the pilot nanobubble technology? So we have a couple of items in here regarding water quality. Maybe Amy could jump in. Yeah, the nanobubble project is funded in the stormwater. We haven't gotten there yet. In the stormwater. Yeah, we'll get to that in the utilities. But yes, it is. It's approximately a million dollars. But the capital side is in this budget. We'll come in a few slides. All right. And just for the benefit of the public, the nanobubble is the technology, the new technology that is hopefully we can test to hopefully once and for all address the recurring water quality and elevated levels of nutrients in the Parkview Canal. Correct. Thank you. So in Mid-Beach, we just have really two major projects, again with the Lifeguard Tower cross-bracing replacement and the 41st Street corridor. This was partially funded with a geo bond. There was an allocation last year, a major allocation last year from the Mid-Beach capital fund. And again, this year, which was another $1.4 million gap that CIP had identified. So that will be able to get that project, that important project across the finish line, hopefully. And then in South Beach, again, with the Lifeguard Tower cross-braces, an upgrade for the White House in South Point Park, alleyway restoration, and the big allocation there is the Beachwalk security bollards. It is a small -- It's always broken. Yeah, I think we've had some issues with the synchron ization of the lighting. I get emails about it all the time. Well, not only that, but I remember I thought you were being a bit heavy-handed when we first got elected about the fountains, and it's been magical since then. Yeah. You walk by there, it's one of the gems of our city. You can tell that how a city functions if its fountains operate. There we go. It's Confucius. So next we're going to move into Convention Center. So Convention Center is an enterprise fund, so they have their own funding source for all their projects. There's a total of 14 projects that we're recommending, and the biggest project that we are funding is the roof replacement. So you may recall for the last two years prior to this, we have been funding as we go, and this will be the last allocation for this project, which is about $24 million. The aeroponic garden was a recommendation from the commission to ask us to try to fund that. The Convention Center team has asked to fund an activation space where the boundary tree used to be. A lot of the other projects are renewal and replacement projects at the facility. So they fund this? Yes. It's from the Convention Center. It's our fund, but all the revenue, less expenses on the enterprise. And there are actually dollars set aside from resort tax. So after we pay the debt from one of our 1% revenues, those dollars are set aside specifically for renewal and replacement at the Convention Center. Could we ever do something more creative on the rooftop of the Convention Center? You know, if you look at an aerial view of the city, it's probably one of our largest assets. It's beautiful. There's nothing around that would inhibit its view. And we just have like concrete. I don't know. We-- Do an aerial mural. I don't know. I'm not kidding. I hadn't thought-- I'm not kidding. I hadn't thought-- It's a great box. I mean, 'cause we can't re-engineer the building to sustain a green roof, which is what I would really like to do. I know we've got an issue or an opportunity already to do a hydroponic garden that would take up part of the roof, if that's where it ends up going, through Commissioner Dominguez. Do a mural. I mean, we have drone shots all the time. It's not expensive, and it wouldn't damage the structure. I mean, I know a large portion of the roof is obviously at the parking garage, but it's always regular roof, and I'm not sure if anyone is able to speak to that or-- I think at one point-- Maybe speak a little bit about that. At one point years ago, there was a conversation of art there or something like that. I don't know. It couldn't be used for anything recreationally. Or even like-- Unfortunately-- Unfortunately, it's a weight issue. We've looked at a lot of things, everything from solar panels to green roofs. But if you're talking about the 500,000 square foot area that's just over the halls, it is definitely a weight issue. So there's very little we can do there. We are-- that's the area we are re-roofing. So it will have a new roof. As far as doing art there, you know, I'm sure we could maybe look into something like that. Just painting something or having something-- That's exactly-- you could literally just have somebody paint waves on it so that it looked like a swimming pool on top or the continuation of ocean. It doesn't need to be a big fancy anything. It could just be, you know, like the way that the water towers are painted to look like pools, right? It doesn't need to be a super fancy artist. It just needs to be, like, you know, awesome. And it's the weight of the paint. That's it. I think that's something that we could look into. Yeah, we could look at something like that. Welcome to Miami Beach as you fly over, you know. That's something-- Oh, that could be fun. Like one of those-- The helicopters are going by. Those little postcards, the retro postcards that say welcome to Miami Beach. When I was the Expressway Authority, we did that with Hed ges. If you fly along 836, you'll see welcome to Miami Dade in H edges along 836. That would actually be really funny. And I love that idea. We could look at something. Take a look at it and see if they can fund. And just-- I'll ask you, though I know the answer because you're clear, there's nothing like we could do that would be a long-term revenue generator, you know, put an outdoor area that the convention center would be able to utilize for concerts or after convention, happy hours, meeting places, things like that. You mean on the rest of the deck, which is where the parking is? Because up there, nothing can-- we can't-- it was never designed to take that kind of weight. On the parking deck, it is designed for the live load of cars. But the problem you will have there, which we have looked into this before, being able to program it and put a tent or put some kind of footprint there, is that you don't have the exits. There's not enough egress in order to have a volume of people in one location. And I ask that you see the great work Freddie's done and the caliber of conventions that we're having is very congr uent with the direction we're taking our city in, right? It is just top-knots. Of course. So Freddie, congrats to you and your team. It's really going hand-in-hand in the direction we're trying to guide our city. Absolutely. I just wanted to inquire. Thanks. All right. Thank you. We'll put it back up. We're moving on to city-city redevelopment. Just a quick question. Do you know if the Convention Center Advisory Board has had an opportunity? Because I know of all of our advisory boards, I think one of our most robust advisory boards is the Convention Center Advisory Board. You all have presented this to them as well, right? I have to ask the Convention Center Facilities Department. I know most of these are rural replacement, the big one being the roof, which I know I'm pretty sure has been discussed by the advisory board. But I'm not sure if any of these other electrical upgrades or CRR projects have been -- I know that Freddie is very involved with MSS, our Economic Development Department, and others. If it hadn't, I will -- They're very involved. They're very hands-on, and they take great pride in it. So it would be great to share with them. We'll make sure if that hasn't, that the department does, go reach out and share that with them. If there's any concerns, we'll make sure to feed that back. All right. So there's actually a small pot of funds in the CRR Renewal Replacement Fund. So they can only be used in the City Center RDA campus. And so what we did is we looked for projects here either at City Hall or the 777 Building, and moved some of those requests over here before using our CRR and PAYGO dollars. So we have four elevators here that need some modernization So we're recommending splitting the funding here, HVAC controls for City Hall, and then some other ADA improvements at the 777 Building, including elevators and more HVAC. So the nuts and bolts here are on this campus. Before -- and I'm so sorry to go back to the convention center issues. This morning we had a very robust conversation at the neighborhoods, Public Safety Neighborhoods Quality of Life Committee, about certain traffic, potential needs for traffic studies, for potential signal ization, potential redesigning of the west side of convention center drive. Should any studies funding be needed for any of that? How can that be contemplated as part of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year for the convention center? I would say if the commission was given direction in that area, that would be something that the relevant department would submit a budget enhancement. It probably sounds like initial planning and design work, which would probably fall more on the operating side, but probably could be absorbed within the operating budget for the convention center. So we'd have to -- obviously this just happened this morning as a discussion, but it would have to be submitted by the said department to then be considered. All right. Thank you. What is the 777 building? It's the building where CIP is right behind -- Taste. What are we doing? Like, what is that? What is that? That's the city's office building. It was purchased the number of years ago. Is anybody proud of that, like, walking past city hall? Does that look like a great facility? Like, I don't know. I do believe that, you know, we're also putting, I think, like, close to $1.3 million of CRA, RDA, city center dollars towards the 17th street garage. And, you know, we're investing in buildings here in this city center campus that I don't know what is the useful life -- Yeah, exactly. --of these buildings in city center. And I do think there comes a point where maybe nothing is going to happen, you know, over the next three, four, five years, or need of this area. How much money do you contribute -- continue to reinvest into these buildings if there is a better use of some of these parcels in city center? And as part of the discussions that we want to have, I believe, as part of the 17th street master plan, if we are going in the direction of protecting Lincoln Road as a historic district and not encouraging any type of rede velopment there, shifting that potential redevelopment to 17th street. And as part of that, analyzing what the city center district looks like and how can these lands be better used? What is going to be the future need of city hall? You know, we continue investing money in this building, and this building itself, you know, has its challenges. Even down to the flies that we can't get rid of from this building. So I think it's a great question you're bringing up, Commissioner Magazine. And I want to say we had the same kind of theoretical discussion, whether last budget season or the one before. I don't know if it's the administration that should do it or we should do it legislatively. But I like where you're going, Commissioner Fernandez. It's just kind of a master plan. We're just piecemealing this together. And it has nothing to do with what's inside of that building, but what way or the great work that our employees doing there. But when I drive down 17th Street, I see that building. I don't say, wow, that is Miami Beach City Center. I go, oh, oh, my gosh. I think, so are we throwing good money after the bad? You know, I just think we can be a bit more world-class seeking for our own city center than the product that we have there. So the city acquired that building. We did not build that. I think that's probably why it looks the way it does. I don't know if it matters who built it. It's just. But hearing you loud and clear that we want to do a long- term vision plan for what this campus looks like. I think this campus and 17th Street. You know, I think, and I think that's the broader conversation. I think there's a lot of opportunity, missed opportunity with our city center campus, most certainly. I would like to see if we have RDA dollars that are available rather than continue putting dollars into infrastructure that might be past this useful life. But I think that's a really important thing. I think that's a really important thing to do. If I may just for these capital dollars obviously are very specific and remainder dollars left over from from kind of legacy funds on the operating side as you all recall our inner local agreements I think which is on the sixth or seventh amendment with the county doesn't allow us to add any additional RDA expenditures. So if we wanted to look at that we know with something we could use general fund dollars to explore that option. But I think the manager is hearing that and we continue that discussion. I'm going to move on to parking. Which is speaking to I think what the commissioner was mentioning in our on our briefing. So the next three slides are a list of basically CRR capital replacement projects for the city's garages whether the 16th street pen garage the 17th street as we spoke about. We're spending a lot of dollars to keep our garages up to date plumbing roof fire fire alarm elevator. We always know elevators are always an issue especially open air structures electrical upgrades again things you would expect in open air structures. Same thing 40 set 42nd street traffic code. So you're going to see you know waterproofing is one of the most important things you can do for a building down here. It protects the overall structure. So making sure waterproofing painting joint replacements through across the bridge decks and 17th street is a mill and resurface of the first street which obviously the first floor. So I apologize first floor that needs to be dug up and fixed. So I think that's the last slide on parking again a list you're seeing all really nuts and bolts pretty much of. So I think that's the most important things to do for the rest of the building and I think that's what you're seeing. So I think that's the most important thing. So I think that's the most important thing to do for the building and I think that's the most important thing to do for the building. So I think that's the most important thing to do for the building and I think that's the most important thing to do for the building. So I think that's the most important thing to do for the building. Monty collects his thoughts. Jason I had some questions about the cameras where was that on the convention center? The one you spoke about, that was back in Pago Fund. I believe was Pride Park CCTV camera installation. So it was the purchase of 19 cameras along with the infrastructure and I think the detail estimate was provided to you this morning from police. It looked like from what I was looking at most of the dollars are in the infrastructure itself running cable, running conduit, electrical, power, things along those lines. Was it 13 or 19? It was 13 . I apologize. How much was it? 125, including the infrastructure. 125,000? Yes. Is it here? Can you go back? No, that was in the back in the very beginning of the presentation of the Pago. Okay. But that detailed estimate you asked for was provided to you. And I think -- I'm sorry. So it's 125,000 for 13 cameras. Has there been any issues with Pride Park? Why do we need -- I'll ask police to come up and speak about that project. And PJ, if you could pull up the slide, please. Good afternoon, Commissioner Swain Jones, Chief of Police. You know, one of the things I've been wanting to do for quite some time is to get more eyes on Adventure Center Drive and Pride Park and around the entire City Hall campus. This is particularly useful during large major events. We have lots of people travers ing the campus in and of itself. The cameras in Pride Park will help us sort of meet that need. I think I've talked my head. I looked at the numbers this other day. The cameras themselves cost around 23,000, $25,000. The bulk of the cost of this project is based on infrastructure, which has to be done one time, one time only. Major Eric Garcia in charge of tech and cameras. He can probably go into specifics for you if you need more detail. Is this something that the police procured or is it procurement? Good morning, Commissioner. I believe Pride Park is an unf unded project. So all we have is our estimates right now. At the time that we go do the purchase, we would do quotes from city vendors. Okay, because I'm looking at the breakdown and a lot of it is just licensing for these cameras. 15,000 for engineering services. Oh, okay. Another 13,000 for three communication load centers. City contracted low voltage cabling estimate 25,000. 22,500 for Cisco switches and power supplies. 23,000 for the actual camera equipment. 3,000 for the green space. 3,000 for the license. About 11,000 for the electrical equipment or the electrical work. I don't know. I just that seems like a lot for 13 cameras. 125,000. Where are they going to be placed? Throughout the campus. We're going to cover all the sides of the campus. We can't put them on the actual city hall building and point it toward so we don't have to have so much conduit that we have to pay for or we can do it on the convention center. Hotel, it's a hotel, but the convention center itself, the point at the park. All those are options, but obviously the park is where people are going to be and you need things at the level where you'll be able to see what's happening with people themselves. You can't identify someone from a rooftop camera. You don't get facial pictures. You don't get clothing, full clothing descriptions from high overhead overwatch. So does this get plugged into our Arctic or is it? These cameras, once they're connected and the reason we're using all this connectivity and licensing is to bring it into our main video management system that connects to all of our systems, including the Arctic. Okay, so it will be plugged into Arctic. Absolutely. So Major, you were just saying that when it's placed on a roof, the cameras, you don't have access to facial technology. No, it's not facial technology, but cameras are used. I think that's what you just mentioned. Cameras are used for different purposes. Cameras on rooftops are usually for an over give you an overall view of an area. We usually call it overwatch, but in order to have, in order to identify someone, you need a camera at human level, not from above. In other words, because I, when I went to the Arctic, you know, there's a couple of cameras that you have on top of some of the buildings and they zoom in and you can see someone's face. Yes, sir, but they're not recording someone's facial, someone's face at the time that an incident occurs. We can zoom in from something at any moment in time, but in order to record what happens in a park and record someone's characteristics, you need a camera that's at a, at a, at a different level than overhead view. Well, what level? Yeah, you're not gonna have a camera at a human height. You can be damaged. I'm sorry, what was that? You're not gonna have a camera at like a six foot, right? No, they're eight to 10 feet. I think 12 feet, I think is the highest that we, that we try to go. Are these the typical poles like what do you have on the beach walk? Of course. Yeah. They serve different purposes. Okay. I mean, I just, I don't know. I think that spending 125,000 on 13 cameras, I mean, it's a lot. Is it funded from Jason? Is it funded from the convention center since that's officially the convention center campus and adding security to and public safety protections to events that happen as part of the convention center campus? No, it's being funded through the PAYGO. As I remember, the commission a year or so ago removed that from the convention center and placed under the management of the parks department. But why? Well , I mean, she brings up, Commissioner Bob brings up a good point. We change who manages the park. But so even though if we, even though we change who manages the park for, for good reasons, since the technology benefits events that happen at the convention center, design Miami, the boat show, um, the, when Adobe was here and they bought out the park, could they not at least split fund with us, even though the city manages? Commissioner Bob: At the end of the day, it's the commission's decision. It wasn't one that we would recommend just based on the management structure of it being under the city's general fund with the parks. If the commission wanted to use convention center dollars, uh, to fund this project, that would be within your purview. Wouldn't want, it is obviously, wasn't how we have recommended it. Uh, again, because of that shift that it's not part effectively of the management of the convention center. It's, as it was shifted specifically back to the parks. But if the, that's the will of the commission, we'll shift the funding. Dr. Jason Lester: Well, let me ask you this, Jason. Uh, let me ask you this. I mean, the convention, the, the park, pride park, even though it's being, it's being the day to day management is by, is by the parks department, the rental of this facility that's being packaged by, by the convention center. So the convention center is actively promoting the pride park to attract a certain type of convention that wouldn't go that, it's coming here and they're not going somewhere else. Why? Because we have the amenity of that park available that we can offer to it. And so to the extent that we could use, um, funds such as convention center funds that have limited and restricted uses to fund something that benefits the convention center, we should because now we can unlock general dollars that we can use for some of our other needs. But yes, it's managed by the parks departments. Um, but the ones that really benefits from it is the convention center, because they are actively packaging this and, uh, profiting off of it. Was that? Profiting off of it. Yeah, I think that there's a nexus in that argument and I think that's fine. So we could shift that project over to the convention center fund. Uh, and then the dollars that were in PAYGO, I would recommend that remember the bridges project, uh, didn't have enough funding. So we just transfer that 125, which was part of PAYGO to supplement the, uh, the bridge project. Which was a bridge project? Uh, we, there's been an, there's an annual allocation to public works departments who do rehabilitation renovation of the city's own bridges. Um, and we were able to get most of the funding for, but not all of it. So I would just recommend that, um, just like the security ballers, when we remove funding from something else is so we can, if the commission seems okay with that, we'll show the 125,000 being moved to the convention center fund. And the 125 that was in the PAYGO would be added on to the citywide bridges project. I would totally support that. Yeah, but I mean, that sounds great. What other options are there? Right. You know, I mean, I just, I don't want to just do it on the fly to say like, you know, we're going to fund the bridges and that's important, but are there other just as important projects that need to be funded that we should all decide on? They're all listed in your agenda. I think on pages, do, do , do. What is it? I'm sorry. 59. 59? Well, no, I, those are all fully funded. I think it's the pullout. The attachment A. Do we need to make a decision today on this? Can we at least? No, the money, if you want, the funds could, um, just be left unallocated for now and we bring back an update in July, um, at the July 17th. Uh, one where we give kind of the other way around, we give a short capital update and then we majorly go into the operating and we could give the capital update and show a recommendation there. And in the interim, the commission could go through the attachment A, which is all of the, the full capital program . And if they have a different recommendation on where to fund it, and again, we'll be doing briefings for all this and we can have those discussions. Absolutely. Yeah, I just, I think it, it merits at least a pause and just a more of a thoughtful, you know, analysis of where we could use this dollars. I'm not saying that the bridge is not a bad idea, but just, I don't want to do it on the fly. I don't, I don't think it's... I have no issue with that. I would just, my enthusiasm was let's get the convention center pop of money to cover it and we'll figure out what the money savings goes to. And good job on that. Thank you. I mean, that's, that's a great, uh, that's a great way to take care of that problem because we do, uh, you know, if the convention center is benefiting mostly from this park, we shouldn't use pay or general fund dollars to fund this. It should be coming from the convention center. Yeah, that's fine. So we will go ahead and show that moving over to the convention center and then we'll show the 125 is just unallocated this time and we'll come back with a recommendation, uh, at the July commission meeting. And then it's also give you time to go through your packet, identify any other, either CRR or pay go. Actually, you could use the dollars and get it transferred over to the CRR. So if there's a, a CRR project, uh, that maybe you find is important, but we will come back with a recommendation and we can get those dollars allocated out, um, at the July 17th meeting. Okay. So I think I'll put the presentation back up and we 'll get into the transportation. So we're onto transportation funds. Uh, you may recall at the Bay retreat, we mentioned that their budget is structurally imbalanced for 27. And so we're recommending not doing many projects with the transportation fund until we have a full conclusion of how we're going to balance their budgets. So a lot of the items you see here with a negative, we're not deappropriating those funds. We're actually just swapping where the funds are allocated right now. So some of the transportation and mobility funds are being used. We're using other funding sources and making the project still available. So the two items that we're actually recommending for funding is item 459, which is the citywide bike lanes project. That was previously called the 17th street bike lane project, but we're not doing the bike lanes anymore on 17th street. So we're recommending just changing the name to be citywide bike lanes, not specific to any street. And then we're going to apply for a grant and hopefully we do receive the grant and we'd have the match dollars available . Uh, the only other project we're recommending is the street lighting improvements. Uh, we're partially funding it, uh, using, um, local option gas tax dollars that are available. Can you go back please? So for the Bayshore neighborhood traffic coming and it's, it's less twice. Yeah. So we're, we're literally swapping the funds. So we're, it's net zero. We're funding from less restricted. It's more, it's more, it's going to be funded. Yes. It's funding. I would just swap in the funding source. Okay. Got it. Same for the other two items with the negative. You'll see them in future slides. Yeah. The next slide here will show those popping back up. Right. Um, so the three, the four items that we're actually recommending funding are starting from the second item down So for the West I've face three project, we're setting aside funding for flashing beacons for pedestrians when the project is done. Um, some crosswalks at Bay drive, uh, traffic comment at 47 th street and then for sunset Allen too, that would be some traffic comment with some signs and some , um, painting. So next we're going to move into one of the biggest infrastructure elements. I know the commission's been, we've been talking about this for a bit. So we're gonna talk just a little bit about utility funds. Um, and as we kind of spoke about, we are really just recommending at this time funding for, uh, anything that is really in the consent decree area. So the first element, uh, it's just the funding swamp and the 25 water and sewer bonds, which we did the declaration tend to issue for public works that project 477, that water main replacement Normandy is a, is a very high priority. So they're just actually defunding some of these other projects, which can temporarily pause and using that dollars to make sure that project moves forward. And then 483. And then on the next one, uh, is, is dirt, you see Durham and EPA consent decree. Those are kind of an Azure smaller consent decree projects that we're required to do. And then this next one, you will see everything. It says CD SA that's consent decree or settlement agreement. So these are part of some type of, um, you know, kind of legal obligation that we have to make some upgrades to our system. So that's where our major dollars are really going for in the water and sewer area. Now, stormwater, um, I'm sorry, this is just the end of the , the same thing with the funding swap here. Apologize. Uh, then the, on the stormwater side, uh, they did have more available dollars. The fund had generated a deal of dollars and anything that was a standalone, we were able to move forward, which is stormwater critical needs, uh, and sea wall projects coming from either resiliency or old bond dollars that we have. And then the, I think the main, and then anything that's tied as an NIP would be held off until we kind of resolve the issue. And I think the commission is working itself well through, through that issue. And we'll deal with that at the June commission meeting. Uh, but the last item, I think, is what commissioner Fernandez was mentioning related to the park view, the water quality improvements. That's the nano bubble. So this is the capital side of it, uh, for the acquisition and deployment of that, uh, technology. And there'll be a small, uh, recurring operating expense, uh, that will be, we will deal with at the July 17th meeting. And they would obviously have to go hand in hand because you have to obviously have the capital expenditure going hand in hand with the operating expenditure. Well, we see, we can get that across the finish line, which we think we can. And then the final three slides that you'll see are all the cash all funds, um, that we have. So we have a lot of little funds that we try to appropriate at the end of each year. So, uh, fire asked for a new outdoor training facility. They actually have their own training and technology fund that it has about a million dollars available. So we're recommending funding it with your own funds. Um, big ticket items here, the Marine patrol dock improvements. We funded most of it in paygo dollars, but this 240 came from the settlement agreement at the mar ina. So they had a contribution to the project of 240. Um, the park view island entrance sign, um, entrance improvements and Allison park, dog park improvements also came from the Deauville settlements. So we're appropriating the dollars per the settlement agreements. Uh, the other two items, well, the rest of the items are split funded. So you're literally seeing the smaller portions of projects that we discussed in prior slides. Uh, and then this funding source, I'm sorry, is what was the funding source here? Uh, which one? Which one? Which property? There's several. Like for example, the, the entrance sign. So that's coming from the Deauville settlement agreement. The, the entrance, entrance sign and the Allison park dog park, uh, that's coming from the settlement from Deauville. So when they give us the funds, we appropriate them in the capital budget. And the, okay. The agreements were specifically for these projects. For those amounts. Okay. So the, the, the DA specifically prescribed that these dollars have to be used for this. Okay. Correct. All right. Thanks. Yeah. At some point I, you know, I, I do want to see, and this is so out of context with this here. Um, but at some point I do want to see what in, you know, for the North beach funds that we have are, is, is going to be addressed to affordability issues for renters in, in, in the North beach area. Because that, that is one of the big issues, um, in North beach, but that is also supposed to be addressed through the North beach CRA. In this case, I understand that these are North beach funds that this DA specifically and contractually obliges us to focus on this. Um, it's a matter of beautification, but I also want to see at some point, Mr. Manager, you know, how do we identify funds, um, through the CRA to address, uh, rent or affordability in this part of our city ? Yeah, I think I, I, you know, you've heard me say it a million times, 10% of our revenue generated to, into the CRA must by law be used for affordable housing. Um , and I would encourage the CRA to start thinking not just about, um, building or rehabilitating existing buildings. I don't know what the law prescribes if we're allowed to do rental as opposed to, um, I don't know if anybody from economic development is here, but, um, if the CRA funds permit us to do rent assistance, because that would be something we could effectuate immediately. We don't have to wait for purchase. We don't have to wait for rehabilitation. And, um, that would be tremendous. Perhaps we can start a referral to the finance committee to look at. Let's, can we, do you know off the top of your head if that's legal? Yes. So, so there are a number of different programs that you can do that all are underneath the affordable, affordable housing. Including rental. Rental. Perfect. I would like to see what our options are for renter assistance because more and more, I'm just hearing more and more about renters being, being pushed out, uh, especially in this part of our city. And, uh, and there's a lot of talk, you know, with, with the state, uh, reforms and property taxes. But at the end of the day, the ones that are not benefiting in any way from that, should the amendment pass are the renters and the renters of our city who are seeing ever increasing costs just because living in Miami beach is a very expensive proposition. Um, and so, and so I would love for us to have an item perhaps sent to finance, uh, where, where we can see what are our options to be able to create a renter assistance program in North beach using perhaps two installers, but also more broadly, you know, throughout the city because, you know, throughout our city, it is an issue. Also, I'd like to mention that Dr. Terry is here and since her department actually handles rental assistance, um, I'd love Dr. Terry for you to come up because this is what you do day in and day out. So, um, all over the city and, you know, as chair of the affordable housing advisory committee, we had a very robust meeting last night where we discussed how we have some money set aside and we're happy to also incorporate that, um, 10% from the CRA because we're discussing where that will go in terms of if we're going to purchase a building or purchase units, uh, or continue with rental assistance, which is something that you already do. So I'd love for you to be a part of that discussion as well. Thank you. Good afternoon. All about that day, Office of Housing and Community Services. Yes, for rental assistance, what we do utilize today is general funds. I'm sorry, um, federal funds. So for that, there is specific AMI attached to it. So those are CDBG home dollars. As it should be. Thank you. And so as we move forward with this referral to finance, I just really want to make sure that Dr. Terry is, is in these discussions, um, as well as the affordable housing advisory committee. They're a very robust group and we had a great meeting. We've been having great meetings. So I want to make sure they're in the fold. Thank you. Are we, Rick, are we allowed to, um, refer from this meeting to, does it have to go back to commission? We would have to place it on an agenda. Can you please, uh, draft that for, for my six meeting? Sure. Thank you. And I'll co-sponsor is chair of AHAC. Sure. And me as well, please. Sure. We'll put the presentation back up and we're just about wrapping up. All right. So this slide just has all split funded projects . So you would have seen all these projects before. These are just using up all the small funds we have available. And the last one is a few. And the last one again has some split funded projects. I would just focus on the bigger items. We do have a fund balance in the building fund. Uh, we are recommending setting aside 9.5, which is a high number. Um, building will go on, you know, figure out what kind of AI permitting solutions they can come with. Um, the commission would have to see that and make a recommendation. I think that's just a little too high for AI permitting software. I mean, the whole point of AI is that you can custom build it yourself to your needs. I don't see how we need to pay or set aside nine and a half million dollars for that. I mean, I know they're flush with cash, but it doesn't mean we should spend it. Well, one thing is there, there is state laws related to the amount of fund balance that they have. So a lot of these calculations go into that, that, that estimate. Uh, there's state law related to what? The, the, uh, building fund is only allowed to have a specific amount of reserves. Um, otherwise, so what does that mean to the developers? So, hold on. So what does that mean? I think it's the commissioner was just stating, I think the process is a general You got to return it to the user. Well, we could, there's, I'm sure there's other programs that we can spend 9.5 million dollars on and encourage small businesses to, you know, open up businesses without, you know, Well, they would have to be only dollars that are allowed, uh, it's very specific in state law, what you can use building department funds for. It must be for, uh, you know, uh, implementing and reviewing the state building code. So it's very, very, very restrictive. I get it. We, you know, we got to use it. We got to use it before, you know, before we can't, before we lose it. But still, I don't think that we should be spending 10, nearly 10 million dollars on AI software. And I would, I would agree that I would, I would suspect this is from a budgeting perspective. And that's what this exercise is very important to do. I do believe that because a lot of us will have to go back to commission based on the dollars that we're speaking about. Well, but then I think what would be appropriate to know, what is the realistic number? Because I, you know, I know nothing about software or, you know, AI software procurement and how much it costs in the marketplace. I, what I don't want is for us to be told in a, in a line item, this is what we need for, for AI permitting software. If that is not what it is, I'd rather know, okay, we have this balance that remains unallocated that we need to determine how it's going to be allocated. So Frank, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Frank Kintana, IT director. So this number, as was noted, is budgetary. And the projection there was based upon the complete replacement of the current permitting system, assuming that a new system would be needed to have a full end to end permitting review. That was AI augmented and a lot of other components to that. There's an RFQ that is currently being worked on for permitting review, AI assisted permitting review, completeness check that we're working with building in several other departments with. But that is a projection on replacing the entire system in its entirety. As a kind of worst case scenario, to your point, just an AI tool wouldn't be that. But if it's determined that replacing the system would be required to have the level of efficiencies that we've discussed, that's where that number is coming from. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm sort of in the infant style stage of AI, but you know, AI is supposed to reduce cost, not cost 10 million dollars to implement. I think, I think at the end of the day, you really need just one or two programmers who really understand how to set up an AI system to build out a functioning model for permitting system. I mean, you can hire, I mean, I'd rather hire two, three staff who are professional AI coders who can build it out for us that are proprietary to us than spend 10 million dollars. Right? I mean, I'd rather, yeah, it's a little ridiculous. I don't, I don't feel comfortable with that. I think that's, that's, that's like a boondoggle. Frank, I agree. Do we put together like a little AI committee where we can rely on some resources from outside of City Hall as well? Right? This is a very quickly evolving sector, if you will. I know a guy that works in a company adjacent to mine, I think met Eric and he's very well versed in AI and he's been talking, it makes my head spin. But I think we have a lot of resources that maybe we can kind of collaborate on just for like a best practices and how to implement. By the way, do you have a new look? You look cool, dude. Is that better? Is it the beard? No, is it the beard or something? You look pretty cool. I must say. But go ahead about the AI czar. So we, we do meet on a regular basis. I have his high school yearbook picture, by the way. Oh, don't do that. No, put him on, I'd like to, I was digging it. Don't change anything. Going back to your question about the community and what we have with some of the businesses in the area. We meet, I want to say at this point, probably weekly with someone that's bringing something that has either come through, you know, the office of one of the commissioners or through our, you know, technology circles. You'd be the point of contact? You'd be the best. Yes, I'd be the point of contact. Yeah. And we meet on a regular basis. Um, Carlos and Vince and I, you know, have met as well with some, companies that are projecting that. We've built a number of tools internally, obviously not to that scale. It really depends. So again, the number is high commissioner Suarez, but it was very conservative assuming that it would require a wholesale change to our entire permitting software. We don't necessarily know that that would be the case. There are ways to wrap what we have in that. So I just, I mean, I'm being, you know, totally transparent and fair. Um, I asked AI is a $9.5 million build out for a permit system in Miami beach access. And it says, it depends on what a building permit system means. If Miami beach paid $9.5 million for a complete enterprise permitting platform replacement, including software licensing, custom development, workflow automation, online citizen portal, document management, plan review tools, GIS integration, migration of decades of permit records, training hundreds of employees, multi-year support and maintenance, then $9.5 million is not automatically excessive. Large municipal software projects frequently land in the $5 to $20 million range, especially when they replace legacy systems used by multiple departments. So that being said, is that what this is intended to do? Again, from a budgetary standpoint, we were assuming that if we needed to leverage the amount of automation that needed to be required with the complexity, complexity that we have, it would be somewhere in that ballpark. If we were to replace an entire system, it's not saying that that is the recommendation. Um, but looking at building funds, um, from several conversations that we've had, if we needed to do a worst case kind of scenario, that's where we would project that this would end up being. Now, there are other AI related enhancements that we've been working on. Um, enhancements that we've been working on. And some of that is coming from , you know, the results of the RFQ that I mentioned earlier. I think once we land there and we understand what that scales out to, um, we would be able to have better numbers. While we can and have built some AI tools here internally, um, there is a level of complexity. And when you have an enterprise system, many times it's a closed system. So you're limited into what you can and can 't pull from, which kind of also leaned us towards what would the cost be for a complete replacement if we want that route. Um, and as many of you know, I'm sure from, you know, watching the news and just being aware of what's out in a private sector right now, AI costs are astronomical. Um, it's affected everything we do from buying laptops and servers and storage to software licensing. Uh, quite frankly, every technical company out there is raising prices and blaming it on AI. It's just part of the way that the market is working. Let me ask you this. If I could, just as a follow up to the commissioner's question. Um, and remember, this is a, just a budget number This is a placeholder. And ultimately we would have to bring back any purchasing to the commission that's in excess of a hundred thousand dollars. But I think if the industry sees that in our budget, we have allocated up to $9 million available to it, I don't think it puts us in a good place. Um, it, so we had a special commission meeting that mayor convened, uh, a while back about the building departments. Uh, and, and so the directive was to pilot, um, AI. Uh, and so you all put together an RFQ, uh, for that, and that went out in March and people were responding. It was a 30 day response period, if I recall properly. There was a 30 day response period, uh, due to the interest in that proposal and the amount of follow up questions that we received. We had to extend that deadline a number of times, uh, just to allow the bidders appropriate time to bid on it correctly. And we are finishing the review, the technical review of the responsiveness now. So I expect that's, you know, on my shop primarily, um, Christie's team has been very supportive on helping us with the proposal portion. So we should be done with that here shortly. And then we'll be able to, well, I don't want to speak to the camera process. So it is under the cone of silence, but we did receive a vast number of responses, about 30 something. So they've been, they're being reviewed, um, internally. And then we hope to bring something back once we could evaluate them, pilot and come back. Yeah, because I'm, I just want to remind everyone that the intent of the commission was that while we understood that full blown implementation of an AI system might be more involved and might take a longer period of time, we really pushed for there to be, uh, pilot quickly implemented, uh, so that the public could start to benefit from the efficiency and the time savings, uh, that, that, that it would generate. So by when given, given the extensions you had to provide in order to pro to provide for proper time and competition within the marketplace, by when do you anticipate having a recommendation, uh, from the administration for the commission? We need to have the evaluation committee. So hopefully we can have that in the next month or so. And then if we're able to do that, I don't see why maybe after the break September, if possible, we can shoot for that. Because once then, once we approve the contract that commission, you still have to implement the system. And I think, you know, I just want to remind everyone, you know, the whole idea was urgency. Uh, we didn't want to wait a very long period of time. We want, we want this implemented. We want to, you know, the whole idea of the building department. I think that's the, the whole idea of the building department. I think that's the whole idea of the building department. I know that I think it was the Rhythm Foundation was looking at office space and you know kind of underwhelming retail space on Collins and they were looking for 10 grand a month. So renting probably isn't the best way to proceed. So where are we on that initiative and is that factored in any place and what's going on with that? Yeah I'll start before I turn it over. The second project there was about a million dollars for office space build out renovation. But one of the caveats, the issues that came up in speaking with our new building director is I think we're waiting on a legal opinion is that there is some changes to the state law that went into effect that may have taken that option off the table. I'm sorry, taken what option off the table? The acquisition of a building specifically to fit out the building department. So it may be forced into a rental situation. You're saying the state wouldn't allow us to purchase property? And I'll let go into that a little bit. But that is I think we're still waiting on a legal opinion to clarify that. But it does appear that option may have been recently taken off the table. Good. Okay. Okay. So just to kind of go into that. So Senate Bill 1614 that is going to go into effect July 1 st took the ability. Lauder? Took the ability of us to be able to actually pay for the construction of a building to house the building department But what about if you acquire something that's already office space? So in terms of purchase, it's not stated yes or no. That's why we're waiting on it. So the state would rather have you pay rental fees in perpetuity to have a new building office? Well, we don't know that. And that's the fine point is it does appear we cannot construct our own building, but we're not 100% sure if it means we can't acquire an existing building. So it's a gray area that is being investigated. I don't know if we have a definitive answer. But so we're either going back to renting a bigger, maybe nicer space and renovating it out very well, which is what's in the budget. But if we're able to get a definitive answer on that, we may be able to pivot to an acquisition. So that enhanced North Beach building facility, whether it 's whatever it is, is already in the budget to some degree. The capital budget here does have dollars for a build out and renovation of a space. Whether it's rented or acquired would be determined. If it's able to be acquired, we can come back and they can engage in that process again with Aussie to identify a specific location. And we can go back and even with all of the allocations, including this major IT project, there would still be sufficient funds, but more than likely to be able to acquire a building. So we're working ourselves through this problem. So I'm putting out the legal disclaimer that the FBI and the state who are listening, this is actually a joke, but can we buy buses for our trolley system through the building department since there's so much money rolling around in there? That was a joke. I don't actually suggest that we do anything illegal. That's a great idea. It would be a mobile permitting system as you go around. Well, I like the out-the-box idea. So if I could on that, I also just want to give everyone a heads up that there's going to be a report that's coming out on the agenda that prints today that talks about all of the far-reaching implications of that state legislation that passed in May that goes into effect July 1. So they gave us less than 60 days to implement significant changes, including changes in our fee structure and basically upending everything that we do in the building department today. So there's a lot of flux going on right now. Home rule. What a cherished memory we have of home rule. Thanks. And then we just have one last item. The last item is vehicle and equipment replacement for next year. It's $10 million. And the majority of those are for equipment and vehicles for police and fire. And then I just finally want to walk you through our next steps because this is, let's remember, this is a budget that won't be in place for another three and a half months. So this is a long, in-depth, transparent discussion that we have. So this is our first capital, this is our capital budget workshop on July 17th. We will do the exact opposite where we'll have a short capital update on where we are as we closed out FY25 and if we have any additional dollars. And then the major one will be the operating. And that's where you talk about the rollback rate reductions and any enhancements that we, the manager would be recommending as their preliminary budget. Then the commission on July 22nd would set the maximum mill age. Whether that's rollback or not, you could always lower the millage at the first or second hearing on September 10th or 23rd. But you set the maximum millage, which goes out in your trim notice in August. And based on the manager's preliminary budget and all of the adjustments that, you know, we have a few in the capital one we've talked about today. We'll talk about them again more in July. And then on the operating side, they will deliver the preliminary overall budget. And those will go out, we'll have our two public hearings. And then on October 1st, the new fiscal year starts. So, and this is circling back to what I said at the beginning. I feel strongly that we should spend some time. It doesn't have to be all evening, but starting these brainstorming sessions. I mean, the news we're delivered here is that we're going to be facing at minimum, oh, what, 7.6, 7.9? 7.9. So we're in that range. A million dollar deficit. And if we follow the legislation that we passed, a 17.9 million dollar deficit. I don't think that's appropriate to make those decisions and not even prepare for it just in one afternoon budget meeting in July. I think we need to sit up here and kind of appreciate the situation we find ourselves in. And while not getting into specifics, at least talk high level about how we're going to achieve some of those things And Jason, I'm not putting you on the spot at all because I 'm not expecting a presentation prepared. But if my colleagues are up for it, at least maybe a half hour or something like that to start preparing for how we 're going to manage towards, at minimum, an eight million dollar cut to our operating budget. Well, I can just say a couple of things to that point. One, wherever that cut level ends up in the, you know, the seven to eight or up to 15, 17 million dollars, you know, that'll be the discussion. But just so, yes, you, we will have a very long and in- depth discussion in July, but that is not to be in an end all. That is where you're going to hear the preliminary, you know, recommendations of the manager. There will things you will be fine with. There are some things you will maybe not be so fine with. You will give feedback and then we will take that back and make any adjustments through August. So when we come back at this first budget hearing in September, there's another opportunity to kind of continue to refine. So maybe this big pie and you say, I'm good with this part, but not good with this part. Switch this out. Give me something different. So there will be more public meeting opportunities because when you first see that data, you've had the program budget for a bit. You're going to get the detailed line in a budget and you 're going to get our recommendations on enhancements and reductions. And you'll have this whole list of additional enhancements that we're not recommending because, you know, we're trying to meet a balanced budget. But I don't think that's what Commissioner Magazine was int ending. I think what he's intending is having another conversation, a little bit more high level, perhaps, and maybe at the next FERC meeting we can have a set aside for that 30 minutes or an hour. But I was thinking now, I mean, we're all collectively together, but just, Eric, where's your head at where some of this is going to come from? Like, I don't mean, oh, line item 459 of $118,000, but where are we going to start making some of this up? And we'll have two levels. One, just the bare minimum managing that $7.9 million, and then to the legislation that we passed managing to $18 million. So what I was planning to do for the July 17th meeting, just to give you a little bit of a sneak peek at what we were looking at, is, you know, as we've been working through this process for the last seven months, we got very clear direction to prepare a rolled back budget We have been working with each of the departments to realize a 5% reduction in their current service level costs And so what we are going to present to you is a list of all of those items that were brought up during those conversations. But I just want to jump in there. I understand that we need to find efficiencies, but I don't want it to be a surprise to anyone. When I ran for the city commission in 2021, I ran saying public safety is my top priority. And I'm not going to support any cut, any cut. Police, fire, ocean rescue. You know, those are areas that I do believe, regardless of what happens with a voter amendment, regardless of our desire as a policy to have a rolled back budget, those are areas where we do not take away from the level of funding. Those are areas that I believe every government, every municipal government, our main purpose is always to protect life and property. And that is the very basics of local government. Ever since I started working in public service at the age of 15, this is what you learn. Local government, you're supposed to provide for the very basics. And, you know, I'm going to be very strong about, you know, while we do want to see a rolled back budget, while we do want to see efficiencies, there are places where you take funding away from when necessary, when you have to, but most certainly not police, fire, ocean rescue. You know, there are certain things like maintenance of parks, streets and sidewalks. Those are just very basic levels of government where I do believe we do have to maintain the level of service that we provide. And then once, then you look at the other areas. And then you look at the other areas. And then you look at the other areas that we won't know until July 1st and get the final numbers. But if we're to set, let's just say they are correct, and $ 7.9 million that we know we need to cut to make a balanced budget, but you're going to be given a menu of $15 or $16 million, you'll have those options without having to, you know, you'll have those options to remove those reductions if it 's something that's not palatable to the commission. And I think that's the great opportunity that you'll have through this process. You won't be forced to do $15 million for the cuts. You'll have to do eight, let's say, and you can meter yourself down a little bit. And again, if there's some more that are not, you could give direction and say, "Well, come back with something more in September as an example." So you have a good opportunity here. You'll have a menu that you don't have to take the full thing. You can take some things that will not be palatable to some And let's say we get to that $8 or even $10 million or X, what Commissioner Fernandez mentioned. What is our path there if that entire, you know, 62% of our budget is off the table? It's off for what? I'm sorry. Is off the table. I'm not sure I understood the question. Right. If that's 62% of our budget is public safety in general, if that is off the table for reductions, where do we come up with $10 million? Can I just chime in before you chime in, Jason? And just philosophical discussion, you know. I don't think any department should be exempt from review. Right. I think there are inefficiencies in all of our departments. That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, by us having to review fire and police's budget is somehow anti-police or anti-fire. I don't think it's a golden cow that we just don't ever touch or scrutinize. I think it's the opposite. I think it only makes, I think it makes it better because, you know, if they are running more efficiently, that's good for everyone. It's also good for the department. It becomes leaner, becomes more efficient for public service. You know, public safety is a priority, but protecting, you know, safety does not require protecting every line item from scrutiny. That is correct. However, when you listen to what was told to us, 5% to the level of service, not to the budget, not to the operations, 5% to the level of service. And I think that that's a distinction. I just, perhaps, maybe I misheard, but I just want to make sure I understood correctly. Where is the cut coming from? But I just want to make sure I understood. Maybe there's a nuance, Mr. City Manager, a re, you know. But I need an answer to my question. So the CSL budget is what we have. What is CSL? Sorry. Current service level budget is what it would cost to provide the exact same services this coming year as cost us the prior year. What we've sat down with each of the departments and said, from your current service level budget for fiscal year 27. Are there any other budgets besides CSL for police and fire ? Sorry. Are there any other budgets for police and fire? That's overall, when we do the budget, we start with the baseline. So everybody's budget is baseline. How much does it cost next year to do what we're doing right now? But I think, but I think, and I don't want to speak for you or put words in anyone's mouth. I think from our perspective is how do we deliver the same level of service more efficiently? Mm-hmm. And that doesn't mean taking away from the service level. And maybe, because I, that's where I feel many of us might be is deliver the same services, but find efficiencies so that we do it more efficiently. So it doesn't cost us as much. Maybe, maybe you have less sworn personnel in, in, in office positions. Maybe you, as the mayor's initiative had of seeking more unsworn personnel doing, doing office work and that type of stuff. Well, that's what I mean by the nuance. I mean, is sworn officers in administrative capacities considered CSL? So CSL budget is basically looking at the total head count, total number of individuals. It's up to the department heads to allocate those resources in specific areas based on the policy direction of this body and obviously with input from the manager's office. But, um, what we've seen over the years, and I think you saw it in the, uh, LTC that went around yesterday. It was a direct result of an ask during the budget retreat is that we've not seen significant increase in head count over the last 10 years, um, on non public safety related efforts, but yet both on the public safety side and throughout the city government, we continue to expand services. We continue to deliver more. Um, I'm just worried that you're getting to a point where the expectation that we can just cut 10 million dollars out of a budget without cutting services is unrealistic. Well, that's where I wanted to start having these conversations here and. And I think, yeah, yeah, commissioner magazine, if I, if I may not to beat a dead horse with commissioner magazine is that's, we kind of want to get a heads up on that before the July meeting. Is it possible to do that perhaps at a FERC meeting at the next FERC meeting where we can set aside another hour and get a preliminary draft of, of what staff is coming up with to do at a minimum, obviously eight. But remember, we all promised the residents that we're going to be doing a rollback, right? We made a promise to the rest. It's not, you know, it wasn't a promise to me. It was a promise to the residents that we're going to lower your taxes and not raise your taxes. So, you know, I just, I want to make sure that this is not coming as a shock and then come July, we just have to, you know, make these, these adjustments. I think commissioner magazine is very correct where we should have as much advance notice of this as possible so that we can really go over it. And I think if I can, Jason, high level where I'm thinking this goes, right? And I've said it for two and a half years because it was very easy to see the trend line of where our expenses were going and just expecting a decline in the growth of our assessed valuations is I've said this exact phrase, we need to do more with the same or else one day we will be forced to do more with less. And I hope we can get to this point without doing more with less. We all need to push ourselves to do more with the same. So to the extent, whether it's in any department, including public safety, including our police and fire, that I think the absolute world of right. If we have an output of a hundred by a hundred employees. So you have a output of one to one. If we, if two people retire or step away from the job. Where we're not forced to make cuts, but we have less people because of attrition. What we're going to need is not maintaining that one to one output. We can't say, well, we're going to get an output of 98 because we have 98 employees. We need to keep that output of 100. Through 98 employees. Right. We're going to need to ask more. Of all of us ourselves, our city staff administration and our frontline workers. And that is the only way we will not be forced into making forced cuts. If we do not address staffing levels proactively, we will be forced to do so through headcount reduction. And I never want to do that. I think the world of every employee here. So we need to ask more out of every single one of us to maintain current service levels. And actually go above and beyond that. With a little less resources. Because if we don't do that, we're going to be forced into reductions none of us want to make. If I could add to the conversation, because it's not a one- way street. We have a police and fire and ocean rescue services to handle the very many major events that we have in our city. We talk all the time about the fact that we're an 82,000 person city. Well, that's true on a Tuesday afternoon. But on a Saturday evening in December or for the next six weeks, we're a half a million person city. And so the two other things that are part of this conversation that are not part of the budget process per se , but are a conversation that needs to be had is how much do our events that we welcome to our city generate for the greater good. Because if they end up being a bigger drain on our system and services and staff. What's that? Then maybe we should do fewer of them. And I'm not talking about the really big impactful ones that define the city. But, you know, not for nothing. We've had Art Basel in December. We had the food and wine event in February. We had the month of spring break. We had, which was great. We had, where are we now? What month are we in? June. We've got FIFA going on now. We had Memorial Day. I knew it was missing one. So that is every single month. Basically, we have major impactful events in the city, which are amazing and we love them. But that's also why our staffing levels of sanitation and fire and police are at the levels where we are, because we couldn't handle those events with a level of security if we were city staffed for 82,000 residents. And that is a fundamental philosophical discussion that we will need to have going down the road at some point if we do not find other ways to generate revenue that are not based on property tax. Or fees on our residents. So bringing new industry here. You've brought in several. I'm having conversations with the city manager and with people in the county about revving up our film industry and generating income from that. To transition the city from a seasonal event driven real estate based income generating town to something that is year round sustainable, has growth opportunities, is a philosophical sea change. And that's the same way that we're reinventing Ocean Drive and South Beach as an arts and culture district as opposed to just entertainment. Not getting rid of entertainment. Not getting rid of events. Not getting rid of the beautiful real estate that drives so much of what goes on here. Not getting rid of the beautiful real estate that drives so much of what goes on here. But if we want to be something else and protect ourselves, insulate ourselves from these kinds of discussions every couple of years on the whims of somebody else's economic decisions, whether in the state or in the country, we need to think differently about what we are as a city and as a community. And that's not a conversation for today or even really for the rest of the budget process. But it is a conversation that we should all be thinking about as we go forward and think about our legislative priorities, the policies, what we want to incentivize here, who we want to attract, what we're going to offer. I mean, we talk about it all the time that we have world class parks and rec. I mean, really, kudos. World class parks and rec from the facilities, the weight system notwithstanding, and North Beach will take that off. No, but seriously, from the facilities to the staffing to the programs that we offer, we have world class arts and culture. Again, from the facilities, the actual facilities to the programs that we offer, we have Alba Tarré and her staff who are taking care of our under-resourced residents with rent assistance and food assistance and navigating the system, not to mention the $10 million that we spend in homeless outreach. I mean, these are things that make us who we are. And if we're going to start thinking that we're going to take things away, we need to either decide that that's not who we are, and therefore lose the people who have chosen to move their multi-hundred million lifestyles, or billions in some cases, to our city. They could have gone to Sunny Isles. They could have gone to Miami proper, and they're coming here because of what we offer in our totality. Or we're going to have to attract different businesses and shift the narrative of who we are. And so, again, it's not a conversation for today or even next week or next month, but it is something that we need to really think about because, you know, nobody wants to take away the things that make the city special and safe and distinguish us from Miami and other parts of Miami. I mean, the statistics that you were asking about, Joe, in the beginning of the meeting about what percentage of of our revenue came from new construction was disproportionately high in a good way here on a tiny little , you know, and it's not even weighted for the size of the area in which it was built. I mean, if you do that analysis, which I don't know how to do, but I'm sure somebody here does, it's even more disproportionately favorable to Miami Beach. And that's because we are something that doesn't exist very many other places in the world, and certainly not in this country or this state. So we need to be careful. We did promise that we were going to try our best to keep costs low going forward. But I do not feel that that is going to be a prudent decision at the expense of what makes us us. There is a balance to be had there. I agree with you, Alex, about the public safety, a thousand bazillion percent. I agree with you, David, about trying to find ways to do at least the same with less. And Joe, I know that's your phrase as well, but we really have to have serious conversations going forward in the next year about how we do that without cutting to the bone and killing the goose that lays the golden egg. And one thing, and Debbie, maybe it's something you can examine with all of us. You can come up with, you know, crime prevention through environmental design. It's a very accepted practice. We don't do that, right? We don't do that. And that's one way to essentially make sure. And it ties into your kind of event discussion where, well, we have to have all these major events because we haven't built a real economy yet. And we don't have a residential population that can support our small businesses. For how many years have we all turned on channel seven and go, oh, there's a video from Mitch Novak's house again. And somebody else happened. And have any one of us or staff as well gone, hmm, I wonder what it is about that area that that is such a hotbed for this crime that then strains police, Jones and his team, right? Perhaps if we had better environmental design in certain areas, we wouldn't need such a drain on our resources, right? Just like these huge events are drains on our resources, there might be an ROI for that, a return on our investment. And, but if we see these areas, and Debbie, maybe it's you working with us and with Chief Jones. And really it's part of what my vision for Washington Avenue was in other areas of our city where we won't need so much police. I always use the example, you know, I say, Chief, do you need to send more officers, the first in Washington or 10th in Washington? And why is that, right? It's because of our environmental design, our urban planning. So if we want to have less of a strain on our resources, I think urban planning is a huge part of that. I don't know if you just, you came up and you're, you know, you're a veteran, but you're new. What are your thoughts on that, Debbie? Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Just to input, you might be about to say, you know, one of our challenged corridors is Washington Avenue. And, you know, you and I have spoken extensively about how we can reimagine Washington Avenue more as, not so much residential, but just to reignite it so that it's not just a single-use corridor where you don't have eyes on the road. That, you know, right now it's just the business owners, right? But if you had residents also living there, you just, you fundamentally have much more eyes on the road and less bl ight and less need for police interventions. And I guess that's what I'll ask. Are there areas of our city where we could better design it , we could have better urban planning, that we wouldn't need such resources from our police and fire? Yes, I agree with you 100%. There are several different tools in terms of urban design and urban planning. The CEPTED guidelines are excellent. You know, I will give you my commitment that we will work with the police department. I know the police department also has some experts in that CEPTED field when we're reviewing new projects, but also things like land use, allowable land uses also factor into public safety. One of the, just as an example, one of the issues we're seeing on Washington Avenue is a lot of those businesses do not create that activity. We do not have a lot of residential housing stock on Washington Avenue corridor. And what we see is we see businesses that are primarily late night businesses that achieve their desired effect by blocking out their store fronts so you can't even see in. There's not that connection to the sidewalk. So there's many things. There's also things that we can work with the public works department on in terms of lighting and that type of enhancement on Washington Avenue, which also helps public safety issues. So I think, you know, I can speak for the planning department. They were committed going forward to not only look at different land uses. We are, we are somewhat restricted right now in terms of removing allowable land uses, but certainly incentivizing land uses that we would like to see that just by, you know, it's, it's a zero cost, right? In terms of cost to the taxpayers by changing a nightclub to, to an apartment building. That is the cost 100% of a developer. So there are low cost and zero cost things just from a land use perspective that we can try and implement in terms of a policy. And then there's also, um, smaller projects like lighting and maybe coming up with some more robust, uh, septic guidelines that we could follow and work with, uh, with chief Jones on. So you've said better in one minute that I've been babbling on about for years and years. What you said is perfect. And it literally gave me goosebumps because that's the vision I want to carry out for our city, right? It has nothing to do about development or this or that. It is creating a better lived environment for our residents and our visitors that are here. And in doing so, it also helps us with our budgetary issues I wanted, if I had a question, I'm sorry. I couldn't. Um, so have we ever had in the past, um, Eric, a consultant or someone that on staff that actually, um, presents some type of long-term plan for Miami beach and where we want to go? I mean, cause I appreciate what you're saying, Debbie, but I feel like the planning department, I mean, you guys, you know, assess projects as they come up and they, you know, developers will contact you and say, Hey, I want to do this here. And then this is our plan. And what can we do? And what can we ask for? And what can we get? And you work with them. But I don't think anyone has ever been on staff that necessarily says what Joe wants, which is, excuse me, Commissioner Magazine, which, which is like, well, we want to get here, you know, or we want to what's where's the sweet spot of too many events or events that actually lower that keep our property taxes low because they bring in the resort dollars. So we need those events. We need that tourism. It pays for itself. We don't really have any type of visionary process, which I think you've been speaking about several different times, which is why you presented that, um, bi-monthly commission, the workshop. So we can kind of talk about this, but I don't think we've ever really had any type of cohesive plan as to where do we want to get? Is it more residential? Is it, you know, less nightclubs or is it maybe a nice combo of both? Or do we want to model ourselves like New York City or Austin, Texas or Monaco? Have we ever had a consultant that does that citywide for what we want our future to be like in 10 years? Like, Commissioner, that's, I wouldn't want to trust that to a consultant. That's what we're elected for. So, but is that though? Because like I said, you know, I mean, the planning department, like you guys don't, or, or do you? And, and, and, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I've just never known of you or Tom or anyone. I mean, you're just one department, right? So it's not like you could sit down or, or could, would, would we need to convene like all of our directors, you know, you and parking, because we need to make sure there's enough parking. And then we need transportation because we need to make sure our roads are in capacity. And then we need to get, you know, public works involved to make sure we have enough toilets that flush. And then, you know what I mean? Like, has there ever been a strategy session about where to get where we want to go in five, 10 years, 15 years, and where will we be? And what does that require? And so that's why I suggest to the consultant, because there are consultants that do all of that urban planning. And poor Debbie, like Debbie, hey, tell us, you know, I'm ready to go. I'll say this to Debbie. Tell us where we need to go in 10 years, Debbie. Debbie, I'll say this. Fix all the problems. Thank you, Debbie. I'm too talented and love this city too much to be a code reader. I want you to be an urban planner. No, and I think. How does that feel, Debbie? Can you tell us where you want to go? Certainly, that is a, you know, best practice, right? In terms of looking at holistically in this city, incorporating other departments. I think we can do that. I think we try to do that. But Commissioner Mateo Salinas, you're correct. We tend to look at projects on a case-by-case basis, right? So we're more reactionary. I think what we could do is, and what we have done in the past, is look at projects on a case-by-case and then look at certain areas. We haven't, I mean, undertaking an entire city-wide master plan would be quite the challenge, right? It would be a multi-year process. It may, like a lot of our master plans that we've accomplished over the years, may not result in any sort of quick action. That's what I think I see, you know, for Washington Avenue where we've got an item now that we're working through. But there's been probably eight Washington Avenue plans since I've been with the city, you know? So I think it's a catch-22 sometimes with thinking too large in terms of we come up with these, you know, year- long planning processes, and then we don't actually, you know, three years after the process is over, it's harder to implement individual projects. So I think it's a balance. I think we need to be more holistic, and we need to be more proactive. And I think, you know, the commission is going to be a great partner with that, because right now, you know, it's not the planning department's purview to propose all these significant changes. That's really a policymaker decision. And, you know, of course, we're here to assist with that. But certainly we're ready to roll our sleeves up and start thinking maybe a little bit differently. And I appreciate that, Debbie, and I just want to say that as we're asking everyone in every single department to do more with less, it's going to be tough to now create a vision for the whole city and where we want to go in five, ten years. So I, you know, thank you, Debbie, for that. And I hope that we can get this together and figure this out. And doing better. Yep. Just to speak to that before Eric gets involved. You know, I thought about that a lot after I got elected, is like, how come staff didn't come to us with ideas? And it turns out that it's backwards, right? I mean, we're the policymakers because we're the ones who get elected because we're the ones who knock on doors and hear from the electorate of what their needs are. Not the other way around. I don't want to hear a consultant's idea of how Austin should be Miami Beach. They haven't spoken to the thousands of residents like we have on their issues and their concerns. So you're right. You know, we're going to have, that's a multi-year process. And by the time it's done, there's another set of needs. And the consultant kind of says, well, this is how you get there. But it comes from us, you know. And you guys are the professionals that would give us the suggestion. You know, respectfully, I'm the commissioner who wants to have, you know, as least consultants as possible because I trust the planning department to carry through my vision just like they did with Washington Avenue. You know, I said, hey, Debbie and Tom, I want to reimagine Washington Avenue, make it more residential, make it more walkable, not add to traffic, and really address the vacant storefronts and blight. And they did. You know, and I trust them. I didn't have to hire, you know, we didn't have to hire a consultant to do that. I fully trust staff's, you know, recommendation. I think it's very easy to say, hey, look, you know, where do we want to see each other in this city in 10, 20 years and have the people who are here to, that are already hired , who have been here for, you know, decades to really give their insight. I don't know if it's necessarily a good idea to hire, you know, a consultant who's going to, you know, take your money, right, or our money or the taxpayers' money for what they think their vision is. I think it really comes from top down because we're the ones who really speak to the electorate and talk to thousands of voters on a monthly basis. And, you know, we're the ones who should be giving the policy direction, not the other way around, right. And that's particularly why you don't see staff coming to us saying, hey, this is our idea, you know, for my reach. It's, you know, you guys carry out our vision. We're not here to carry out your vision. Correct. So I want to go back to a point I made earlier. There's one of the last meetings that we had. You know, I asked staff, segregate out the 62% that's public safety from the budget and show us where we've had most of our increase. And you prepared that LTC. I think Jason started with his presentation with that today And, PJ, I don't know if you have that. There we go. That's the image that I wanted to see. And so, you know, what stands out to me here is that, you know, we have areas where there are not the direct services that our residents are receiving, where we have seen tremendous growth. In economic development, we've seen an increase in the budget of $2 million. In procurement, you've seen an increase of over $1 million in CIP and finance and facilities. I think it's $4 million. You know, over the past 10 years, it seems like, you know, we've seen an increase, more than 50% increase. Yeah, certainly more than 50% increase over the past 10 years. Now, does that necessarily mean that we're overspending? Probably not, but does it suggest that there's room to examine whether every increase in these lines remain justified? I think so. And so, before we go out and we take away from the essential services that our residents are getting in police , fire, ocean rescue, maintenance of sidewalks, streets, and parks, I'd rather us take a look in these areas here, especially those line items that aren't the front-facing services that our residents are getting, before we touch any of those direct services, and most certainly before we touch any of those services that are the most essential core public safety and the very basic tenets of being a municipal government. You know, and I say that with much respect for all of these entities that are here, and including, you know, a lot of the stuff that has been discussed here today, especially, you know, line items that are important to our brand and who we are as a city, including arts and culture that we want to preserve as much as possible. But before we go into preserving that, I truly feel that, number one, we need to make sure that we have the funding secured to maintain the level of service in the core areas of our government, and then seeing some of these other areas where we've had $ 2 million increases over the past ten years, $4 million increases over the past ten years, you know, multimillion-dollar increases, and seeing, okay, there, especially areas that are not front-facing, especially areas that are not direct services to our residents, seeing where we can find those adjustments and those effic iencies so that our government can continue providing the very core basic services that are expected of a municipal government. I have, Commissioner Fernandez, I have an item coming up at the next meeting for AI consulting to see how we can go into every single department, not every single department, and see where we can find inefficiencies and take advantage of that. And that just frees up more dollars for what our core functions of government are. So, and arts and culture, and public safety, and, you know, everything that we value as a city in Miami Beach. So, I'm hoping that, you know, I get unanimous support for that. I think that's going to be another way we can attack that issue. Yeah, and to your point, Commissioner Fernandez, certainly part of the reason why we've improved so much as a city is because of our focus on public safety, a clean city, right? So, I would never want to take steps back in that regard. I also think that we can have discussions about how to have more efficiencies in those departments while still providing the same level of service, right? Just like we have in every single department. Of the, I think it was three or four departments that you highlighted there, mayor and commission, maybe, PJ, if you could pull that slide back. Eh, don't worry about it. Even if we rolled back the top four departments, ex-park and rec, to 10-year-ago numbers, that only gets us about a third of the way there to a rolled-back millage rate, right? If we would take, Parks and Rec isn't somewhere I'm willing to roll back on because I think it's truly the greatest amenity in our city , along with public safety. But if you would roll back the top four entities that are highlighted there to 10-year-ago numbers, we'd still only get to about half or a third of the way to getting to our rolled-back millage rate. So it's not that I'm saying, yes, we want to roll back public safety or things like that. It's just when that constitutes such a large portion of our budget, we certainly need to find ways to run at the same levels of service with a more efficient government, right? And I'll say that about every single department. If we have lesser allocation to the mayor and commission, I 'm not going to go out and tell our constituents, hey, you can't call me on Tuesday because we have less resources. I'm going to say, you know what? I'm going to bust my butt and provide that same level of service, even if we have less resources possible. And if that's something that we need to evaluate our own selves, that's on the table as well, because I will, for damn sure, lead by example. So I guess my point was, you know, rather than saying, you know, my thing is, you know, when the revenues are declining, which I anticipate this ballot question will probably pass, if I had to guess, though, a lot of people and a lot of experts in politics say it's not going to pass. I read the tea leaves very differently, and I feel it is going to pass. Not because I like the bill, because I do think a lot of things are going to suffer. A lot of the important programs that are funded by government, and a lot of governments are going to practically disappear But when our revenues are declining, the budget reductions, I believe, should be based on priorities, and not a specific percentage that's applied equally to every department. And that to me is crucial. You know, and I understand the exercise of the 5% across all departments, but there are more essential departments and services than others. And if that 5% applied to certain essential core functions of government affect the provision or the level of service of some very basic services of government, I'd rather than see the cut perhaps be slightly larger in other departments to protect the level of service of core essential municipal services. Wholeheartedly agree. And Eric, just for clarity to see, you just did that across the board to give us a menu of options to say, if not here, there. Correct. So I think we've gotten a lot of feedback, and I think a good understanding of our structure going forward. And then to wrap up for this with the capital, I think we had a couple of elements that we've made notes of. We'll make adjustments, and we'll make sure to have that back in July. And the important thing is July 1st, we'll get those additional values out. We've got some definite work to do, but we'll be ready. But we are three and a half months out from this budget, so we do have some time and go through these exercises. I just want to thank the commission for all being here and giving us some good feedback and some really good discussion here. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much. Meeting adjourned. And if I could, this isn't part of the meeting. Eric, thank you and your team, Chief Jones, your team, Chief Alba, your team. What an event, John, you and your team, what an event we had to kick off the World Cup. It was flawless. We were just, yeah. We were the epicenter of the world, and our city pulled it off flawlessly. I couldn't be more proud. Crushed it.

One. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the June 17, 2026 meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee. I'm joined by Vice Mayor Laura Dominguez, by Commissioner T anya K. Bott, and by Commissioner Monica Matosalinas. I'm going to pass the floor over to our staff liaison, Stephanie Ray Brooks, for this morning's announcements. Good morning. Today's Public Safety Neighborhoods Quality and Life Committee meeting is a hybrid meeting. The members of the committee will be physically present at the commission chambers. Members of the public who wish to attend this meeting or provide public comment in person may appear at the commission chambers. Members of the public who want to participate or provide comment virtually during the meeting may join via webinar via Zoom. We also added a supplemental this morning with residents' comments for item number eight, and that is live on the agenda. Thank you, Stephanie. We're going to take today's agenda in the order in which it was printed as usual. As every committee meeting, we're going to start with a citizens' public forum where residents are given two minutes to speak on any issue, whether it's on the agenda or not. So residents wishing to speak, feel free to approach the podium. You'll be given two minutes to speak. Residents attending via Zoom, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom, and you'll be afforded two minutes as well. Good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. You do such amazing work. I'm so entertained by the depth of the commentary, the questions when I come in here. I did not know really how the public felt about having a bird bath on Belle Isle until I went out to ask. And inadvertently, my questions and my questioning them has created tremendous demand. I was feeding the birds this morning. I was just running out of the car to get that food in there . Oh, well, somebody approaches me. Well, when are we going to get the bird bath? Now they all want a bird bath. It's a sophisticated crowd. I'm willing to increase the amount that I can contribute personally to $3,000 from $2,000 at this point in time. And the only other question I have is, do you think, since this is number 57 on the roster, do you think that this might be heard for discussion today? It's not on the agenda. The item on the agenda for today are those who are listed under items to be heard. And we take the agenda in the order that it's printed. So odds are no. Not today. The item's not being heard. It won't be heard today. No. Thank you. I just wanted to let you all know Belle Isle really wants this small, charming thing for our wildlife. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Johan Moore, good morning. You have two minutes to speak. Good morning, commissioners. While this is not on your agenda today, I did want to submit a few remarks based on Commissioner Fernandez's recent comments about budgetary matters and the need to address funding in an equitable way. I had a couple of specific remarks about the millage rate and general fund budget. And in particular, I would draw your attention to items three and four, while making it clear that I had absolutely no objection, quite the contrary, to item five, which includes a three percent cost of living adjustment for city employees. But I wonder why I have a why and a why not. Why is the millage rate not being considered to be changed to a variable rate, which would fall more heavily on luxury properties? And that's why, why is the millage rate, which is a number of people that are not going to be changed to the city's health insurance premiums, but 10 percent increase for police and fire. And I hope we will get those answers at some point in time in the next however many months. And also item four, possibly of even more concern, an average two percent performance based merit increase in pay , apparently, except five percent for police and four percent for fire. These are not rhetorical questions, but I also understand that this is not on the agenda today. So I wanted to put those before the commission and almost more to the point before the public in hopes of getting clarity on some of these issues as we move into this being on your agenda, I hope, in the near future. Good morning. Welcome. You have two minutes to speak. Good morning, commissioners, committee members. My name is Matthew Goldhanoff. And I was going to come this afternoon to speak on an item related to the budget. But then I realized that they had the Sutnick portion for this morning's meeting, which is so great. It gives the public another opportunity to connect with the policymakers of the city. I wanted to talk about the bicycle pedestrian coordinator position, which many of us fought for a couple of years ago , including champions that are sitting up on the dais right now of this position. I learned that it was being considered to be eliminated, not only be eliminated, but that it hasn't even been filled yet. It's been a number of years. Bicycle usage has grown tremendously. Micromobility usage has grown tremendously. And sadly, we've seen in the last couple of months a number of fatal and serious crashes involving all three of those groups. And I would just encourage the body here as well as the entire commission to not only retain that position in-house as an employee that can retain and grow institutional knowledge and make meaningful change in the city, but to fill it as well. And that is my comment. Thank you, Matthew, for bringing this to our attention. Certainly is important. Any other members of the public wishing to speak? Seeing none in person and none on Zoom with their hand raised. We're going to close the Sunday Citizens Forum and we'll move to item number one on the agenda. Item number one is reports and updates. Monthly update on the status of the Fifth Street Pedestrian Bridge and the Modern Hotel Mirador Condominium Baywalk projects. This item is sponsored by Commissioner Dominguez. Stephanie, apologies for interrupting. I'm going to ask to defer number nine. So we can show item number nine as deferred. Good morning, David. You're here on the Fifth Street Pedestrian Bridge and on the Baywalk projects. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Madam Commissioners. David Gomez, Director of Capital Improvements, here to provide the update on the Baywalk and the Pet Bridge. As you all are aware, the portion of the Ped Bridge that was covered under this update has been completed and open to the public. So that has been ongoing for several weeks now. And the update on the pedestrian bridge as of yesterday afternoon, the developer is in the process of receiving final reports from their consultant later this week. So we should have some direction or some determination next week. They are looking at multiple options and multiple variations on the construction of the bridge itself. So we should have more information for you next week. So, David, it was my understanding, this bridge is pre- built. Portions of it are prefabricated, yes. The main structural portions, the beams that cross the Mac Arthur, are scheduled to be prefabricated, yes. Okay. And so now they're looking at potentially rebuilding the bridge? They're looking at any design option that will help them complete the bridge, whether it's changing alignment, changing foundations, changing layout. They're looking at what they can do to make it happen. So FPL identified the landing spot for the power source. That's correct. To the city. And then once that was identified, the developer was identifying or was trying to determine whether that was going to impact the foundations for the receiving end of the bridge. That's 100% correct. Their first determination was whether or not it impacted the foundations. It does. So now the next step is to determine what they can do to work around that FPL. And that is what the consultant is currently doing? That's correct. This isn't the city's consultant? No, no. This is the developer's consultant. So there's no taxpayer's dollars from the city of Miami Beach being spent on a consultant to trying to fix this issue between the developer and FPL? That's correct. Okay. And you said that that should be available by when? As of yesterday afternoon, they told us they would have something, they would receive something this week and then deliver it to us next week. Okay. Commissioner Bond. Thank you, Chair. David, I have a couple of questions. One related to what the Chair was just asking about, one related to the other end of the Baywalk. So forgive me since it's not in the middle of Commissioner Dominguez. Vice Mayor Dominguez's prescribed area. My understanding about the issue with the Baywalk at the southern end is that it is very close to power lines where nobody is willing to really take ownership of the location of the power lines. And so, you know, I'm pulling back to the 30,000 foot height and this has been going on for a long time. And this is not a comment to say, oh, well, they don't need to build what they committed to because they do. But my question is, if there is even a chance that in constructing the bridge as it is currently imagined, there is a chance that either we will knock out power for an entire section of our, very densely populated section of our city for even an afternoon. But it would likely be days or weeks before it got restored . That's a non-starter for me. And more importantly, is if there's even a chance that a single person's life would be lost in construction of the bridge as it is currently imagined. That's an absolute non-starter for me. So why are we still wasting time talking about how this version of this bridge can be built in this manner when what I think we should be doing, and I know I'm just one voice, I'm not an engineer. I think what we should be doing is reimagining what that functionality could be. If it's an over-the-water extension of the pedestrian walk way, if it's a different kind of bridge that's built and engineered differently. Like I understand the developer promised X, but nobody had done the engineering work at that point. So when X proves to be, to my view, an untenable safety risk one way or another, or God forbid both, move on to another plan. So can you address that? And then I also have another question. Exactly to your point is why they're being so careful with the layout. FPL has determined with a pretty good level of certainty exactly where the line is. But because of safety factors and wanting to make sure that we don't have the incidents you described, there's a certain clear area that's required around the lines. So that's really what's impacting the foundation layout. If it were a matter of just move the foundation of foot and we could do it, but we're just too close to the line, so we 're keeping that safety factor. So when you say FPL has a pretty good degree of certainty, to me that's an oxymoronic statement. Like certainty is not pretty good. It's either certain or it's not. And pretty good is like, you know, everything is relative and hand grenades and horseshoes, right? What's that expression? So I don't want, like I don't want a pretty good certainty. I want ironclad certainty and I don't know from what I've been talking about with various parties, it doesn't seem like that certainty can exist. They have provided a survey drawing of the lines, but FPL, like most utilities, will never guarantee that it is exactly where they're showing it. And because of the depth of the line, it's hard to confirm while we're doing the construction. So we have to build in that safety factor to make sure that we're not having the events that you described. The developer is looking at not only how, if it impacts the foundation, how it could be adjusted, but they're also looking at other alternatives. So they are examining or reimagining the potentials. Okay, so because this has been going on for at least since I was elected and far longer because you guys have worked on it. So why are we still dithering around with this version of the bridge instead of saying, you know what, it would have been beautiful like this, but let's go to another plan. I mean, I know it's not our money, but it is our city's time, our residence and convenience. And, you know, let's go design something else that's beautiful and functional and doesn't put power supplies and lives at risk. I mean, it just doesn't seem... And if I could add on that, under future items on our agenda, we have item 49 from Commissioner Matilda Salinas to discuss the feasibility of replacing the planned 5th Street pedestrian bridge with an overwater connection linking the baywalk south of 5th Street with the baywalk north of 5th Street. Commissioner, if you're ready to have that item heard at the next meeting, I'll make sure it gets placed on the agenda for the next meeting. I'm ready. Let's do it. And to your point, Commissioner, we are doing it on a parallel track. We're looking at multiple options. Perfect. So thank you for that. And Commissioner Matilda Salinas, yay. And then switching to the other end of the baywalk, the property Lincoln Bay Towers, talk to me about what's going on. Because I'm getting sort of... I'm hearing from residents there that they are not being apprised of what's going on, that they are not being included in the conversations. And as it directly affects their backyard effectively, it seems like they should absolutely be part of the conversation of what's going to be built there, how, when, et cetera. I will need to follow up with you. 1450 Lincoln, which is Lincoln Bay Towers, has been in conversations with the city about that baywalk for a very long time. As a matter of fact, I think you helped us broker a deal with the layout, regarding the layout, long ago. That is now... I don't think that was me, but so give the credits to somebody who actually did the work. That is now part of the development responsibilities of the developer for the 1250 West Avenue. And they have been... As a matter of fact, I think just last week, at the request of Lincoln Bay Towers, a meeting was cancelled, where they were going to go over the presentation of the proposed bay walk. We are working with, through our Neighborhood Affairs Division and the developer, to have those conversations and present to them whatever layouts we can provide. And are you meeting with the board first and then the full ... Yes, ma'am. So, conversations are moving forward. Thank you for that update. I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner Bond. Vice Mayor Dominguez. I met with the development... I mean, the team for 1250 yesterday, and we went over the three pending areas of the baywalk, which was 800 West, 12 28, and 1450. And they're very close with the first two. And with the third one, they've met with the board of that building, and they feel that they have a rendering that could potentially get approved by that building. And so I think... Yes. So I think it may be on its way. With the pedestrian bridge, and I know it's beyond our control, but I'm very disappointed because when this was first proposed, and Mark Samuelson was on the commission, he was told by the developers that it would be done by Art Basel the following year. And then here we are, years and years and years, and it just feels like... Not us, but in general, it's dragging. People are dragging their feet and pointing fingers and making excuses, and we need to cut that out and get this done. It's embarrassing what's happened with that pedestrian bridge project. I personally share your frustration. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And, you know, as we've discussed, Jose, David, we've discussed, this shouldn't be a death by a thousand cuts. And right now, that's what it feels like, is, you know, constantly going back to the drawing board, constantly, you know, engaging consultants, constantly looking at redesign, when we almost know the direction that this is going in. The direction that this is going in is that it won't be realistic to complete this, you know, without engaging in some very serious public safety concerns, and some very serious impact to essential infrastructure in our city. And do we do we feel it's worth to engage in those public safety liabilities and impact to essential and critical infrastructure, such as the power source to South Beach, if there are other options that could be pursued. So we're going to prioritize Commissioner Matil Salinas item so that we can explore whether at this point it will be prudent to shift directions from the bridge over the Mac Arthur Causeway and shift our resources and our focus to doing this over the water. What I want to make sure is that when we come back next month with that discussion, that we do have analysis as it relates to the contractual obligation of the developer to fulfill it in that manner. If there are going to be fiscal impacts, who are going who is going to bear those those fiscal impacts in addition to obviously the regulatory matters of building over the water . But from but from what I gather, we've already we've already successfully built BayWalk over the water. When we see the advancement that we've done over the BayW alk over the past few years under the auspice of Commissioner Dominguez, who has been leading this effort ever since being elected, we have seen significant advancement from where we were at four years ago to where we were at today. Links that didn't exist before now exist over over the water. So we've learned how to do this. Now we just need to shift focus. And if something isn't going to be realistic, we just need to be true to our public, to our residents and constituents Something was promised. It's no longer feasible for reasons that were unforeseen. But now this is the new plan. Yes, Commissioner. If I might add to that. I think also, you know, as beautiful as that rainbow bridge was designed to be, I mean, look at my shirt. It's like a rendering of the rainbow bridge. Unlocking rainbow. I know. I think the expression is like a unicorn farted or something. So, you know, whatever. But it's a beautiful design. And it would be really fun and cool. But there were concerns about it, right? It was a little bit complicated for people with bikes to negotiate. I know it was engineered so that it was feasible. It's a little bit complicated. There were concerns about safety over, you know, at night. There were concerns about how hot it would get during the summer months. So it was not a perfect, perfect design. And, like, those concerns were addressed and managed so that they weren't deal breakers. But if we have something else that could be equally functional, because at the end of the day, that is the most important thing, and also kind of addresses the concerns, be easier to navigate for people who are wheeling their bikes, because you're not allowed to use bikes on the Baywalk. But, you know, they're wheeling their bikes to connect to South Point or wherever. The safety issues are not as large for other reasons. And it can be designed to have a beautiful, you know, let's say a greenscape that is designed to, you know, enhance the beauty of the functionality. Like, you know, Monica, I know this is your whole thing for next month. But at this point, I'm like, no longer fish or cut bait. Like, let's cut bait and go get a different fish. So I think it might be appropriate for next month, together with Commissioner Mattel Salinas' item, is once we know what that final report from the consultant, from the developer says, I want it to be on the agenda. If it's not going to be feasible, I think we need to clearly state on the record, have an item on our agenda's part. Of this report, for us to consider making a recommendation to the City Commission to no longer pursue the bridge. That is ultimately what is going to happen. Let's just pull this bandaid. Let's be transparent with our residents. Let's stop wasting the developer's time and our staff time, which is ultimately our staff time, is taxpayer money. And let's just be ready at the next month to say the Public Safety Committee is moving to recommend that we no longer pursue the bridge and send that back to the full commission so that we can then focus all of our efforts into what could truly be the realistic path forward. Is the next Neighborhoods Committee meeting before it is before the next commission meeting in July? And if you all want to have just a special meeting on that, just on that issue, I'm happy to accommodate it. Just because I do think this has just been lingering on for way too long. I think we all know what's going to happen. And I think it's just, you know, it's just a bureaucracy. The steps over the steps and the consultants and the reports and the engineers that we just go through before getting to the final destination. That I think we all feel in our gut we know what's going to be. All right. Agreed. I mean, I'm so hopeful that we can get that bridge done the way it was intended to be. And so until I hear the final verdict, I don't want to pull the Band-Aid because I don't like the under the water, under the MacArthur Causeway. I think that's dangerous. Right. The safety concern. And I understand that. And so I just, you know, my concern is if the infrastructure, if our power supply to the city is going to be affected, that supersedes everything else for me. So we can see, we can show this item completed for today and being brought back at our next meeting. If the committee wishes to have a special meeting once we get the report so that we know which direction this is going in, I'm happy to convene a special meeting. All right. Great. Thank you, David. Let's proceed to item number two. Item number two is the monthly updates on the status of ongoing and future projects involving the use of the Leonard Horowitz color palette for art deco building restor ations in collaboration with Barbara Hulenecke. This item is sponsored by Commissioner Dominguez. Commissioner Dominguez, this is your item. Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Frank Garcia, facilities management division director. At the May 13th public safety and neighborhood quality of life committee meeting, the committee directed administration to prepare renderings for the painting of the two beachfront restroom pavilions located at 6th and 14 th streets, respectively. The facilities management division subsequently conferred with the planning department to select potential colors for the repainting of the restroom pavilions. The proposed renderings and color selections have been included in the memo for the committee's review. And I believe PJ can bring those up for us from the control room. Thank you, PJ. I'm trying to remember if this is 6th. It's 6th Street. That's 6th Street, yes. As evidenced by the big block signage on top of it. And as we're looking at these items, this is in collaboration with Barbara Hulenecke and... No, ma'am. The colors for these renderings were... Came from our planning department. I personally conferred with our incoming planning director, currently our chief architecture and historic preservation officer, Ms. Debbie Tackett. And so she helped select these colors and we put together these renderings. PJ, next. This item is Barbara Hulenecke. But I think at the last committee meeting, the committee, the staff sought feedback from the committee and the committee responded saying, We were fine if they wanted to confer with planning staff instead of speaking with Ms. Hulenecke. That was the feedback that the committee provided. Is she still getting her fee? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, I should add that the total cost for this project currently stands at $8,400 for both restroom pavil ions, exclusive of any consulting fees. Should the committee wish to engage Ms. Barbara Hulenecke to consult on these painting projects? As done with projects past, we can anticipate an additional $10,000 in consulting fees. It was for the other painting projects that she consulted on, it was $5,000 per. And I think for the other projects, there were larger scale projects. And so perhaps, you know, it was beautifully done and her input truly contributed to the outcome. And I think it was a very important part of the project. I believe that that this title appears this way on the on the agenda of his whenever this item was originated, I believe back in 2024. I think that may have been the title. And at the last meeting, staff staff asked the committee if we wanted to continue with these two with these two buildings, with the guidance of of Miss Huloniki. And and the committee provided the feedback that it was okay, perhaps not to engage Miss Huloniki just with these two bathrooms. That's not to say that for other larger scale. Right. And I picked up this item from a former commissioner. I'm now the sponsor. So making decisions when the sponsor isn't there to defend the item. I had a family emergency and was unable to attend. So maybe for the next time, if the sponsor is not there to defend it before slashing it, making large changes, defer it. Defer it so that the sponsor can speak up on the item like I'm doing now. So what do you like Miss Huloniki engaged? Of course. I would like her engaged. You already mentioned that these two smaller projects did not warrant her engagement and her fee. So my ask is don't bring up items that are not going to have Barbara Huloniki covered because that's what this item was intended to be. Collaborations with Barbara Huloniki. Check with economic development because I have heard that there are opportunities there and let's move forward with those. Any other comments from the committee? No need to modify the title if we are collaborating with Miss Barbara Huloniki. Yeah. Commissioner, would you still like to proceed with these two restrooms on Loomis Park? Yes. Can you, I'm sorry, can you pull up the renderings? PJ, can you give us a hand with, yeah, thank you. If you, there's, I think there's four such renderings if you want to scroll through those. Is there a motion on the table to support these two render ings? I'll make the motion. Is there a second? Not officially on the committee. I'll second. With that, let's show this moving forward. And colleagues, if there's ever an item on the agenda that you do not want to be heard, just, you know, let us know. We always try to be as accommodating as, as we can. Items only get placed on the agenda if the sponsor is okay with the item being placed on the agenda. And if the sponsor does not want an item heard as we did today with item number nine, that the sponsor requested for it not to be heard today, then it will not be heard. Absolutely. And when emergencies arise, flexibility is also appreciated All right. Let's move forward with item number three. Item number three is discussed. Reimagining the traffic pattern at the 63rd street, Indian Creek and Collins Avenue intersection to enhance pedestrian and micro mobility devices operator safety. This item is sponsored by commissioner. Commissioner about this is your item. You're welcome to introduce it. Jose will go through the heavy lifting of this item because like everything Jose and I work on together, it's not easy. So I'll let him do the hard part of this. But the 63rd street intersection where you go across 63rd street and then either go north or south on Indian Creek or cross over to Collins is complicated and congested a lot of the time during or most of the time during rush hour. But even when it's not congested, it is not easy to navigate if you are on foot or on a bike or micro mobility device just because the way it was designed, which is car centric for obvious reasons. So the challenge is, is there an opportunity to reimagine how it could work without impacting negatively impacting traffic, vehicular traffic, but also enhancing pedestrian and micro mobility safety. So that's the challenge and Jose will take you through where we are in this. Good morning, Mr. Chair committee members, Jose Gonzalez, transportation and mobility director. Um, as commissioner about pointed out, this is a challenging intersection in our city. It's one of several hotspots, uh, choke points in our city because of the current grid, the roadway grid in our city. Um, a lot of history. I just want to really briefly recap some of the history, uh , with regard to prior efforts and current efforts to look at this intersection in a comprehensive way and make some improvements. So this starts, um, about two years ago, we actually asked FDOT to, um, do a traffic study of that intersection to look at ways of improving the level of service. Um, that study was completed by FDOT. They looked at, uh, a few alternatives, including the do nothing alternative, which is always an alternative for FD OT. They call it the no build or do nothing. Um, the other- That was just a factual statement. That was not an editorial comment. Correct. I just want to clarify that for the record. It's a real alternative. It's called do nothing. Um, the other alternative was to optimize signal timing to improve traffic flow. And the third alternative was to add a westbound lane on 63 rd street, because as commissioner pointed out, currently, if you're, if you're traveling northbound on Collins Avenue , um, and you make a left on 63rd street, you cannot go through the Indian Creek Drive intersection. You can only make a right and go north on Indian Creek Drive or, or south if you make a left. Uh, it's a, uh, it's a key movement to go west. 63rd street is one of the few east-west primary thoroughf ares in our city. So it would be, it would be beneficial to have 63rd street punch through the Indian Creek Drive intersection, uh, so drivers can proceed westbound. Uh, and so that, um, that study unfortunately led to, uh, F DOT recommending that nothing be done at that intersection for the reason that, uh, for a, um, new left turn, uh, for a new westbound lane to be accommodated at the intersection I'm going to ask to pause because I'm not a voting member on this and okay. Um, and to clarify the FDOT study just looked at, um, veh icular traffic impact, not pedestrian or micro mobility. So when they were looking at it, cause we were looking at it like, yeah, it'd be great to improve traffic. But what the impetus of this was, was really, how do we make it safer for people walking and biking or scootering or e biking along the way? So their study was useful in some regards, but it didn't really address the fundamental issue that we are now talking about. They did the study a couple of years ago. We just started talking about it recently. So I do, I want to just point that out to my colleagues on the day as to anybody listening that it is useful to have the FDOT study, but it didn't, wasn't undertaken under the auspices of how do we make it safer for pedestrians and alternative, um, uh, traffic modalities. And even when, if we're only looking at vehicles, the, the DOT study, uh, found that if a new westbound lane were to be included or accommodated on 63rd street, it would be detrimental to traffic along Indian Creek drive, traveling southbound, approaching the bridge. So a new lane would actually make things worse. So that's why ultimately the, the study found that doing nothing is actually better than, than doing something, uh, at that intersection. So that was the first effort. That was two years ago. More recently, uh, we've undertaken what we call the North Beach traffic signal optimization pilot project. That it's a pilot project that was endorsed by the city commission. And what that is doing, it's looking at the network of streets in North beach, including Abbott, including Harding , Indian Creek drive, 71st street, 69th street. It's looking at that whole grid and trying to see how to coordinate signal timing in a way that the entire grid, um, flows better. Because what's happened over the years is that different efforts have focused on a particular corridor, such as Abb ott Avenue. And so Abbott Avenue may be improved North South, but it may adversely affect 69th street going East West. So it's, they've been very isolated intersection or, uh, corridor specific, um, evaluations. What we're doing now is looking at, um, really that, that, that portion of North beach, which is so congested, you know, on a, on a daily basis, particularly during a morning and afternoon rush periods. We're towards the tail end of that pilot project. Um, the next step is a key step, which is bringing to the county, the recommendations that we found to improve traffic flow. Because as, as you all know, ultimately Miami Dade County has jurisdiction over traffic signal control timing. So our, our, um, consultant, uh, identified some improvements there from a network perspective. And we're getting ready to present those to the county. Hopefully if they endorse it for implementation and then the whole area will, will, uh, flow a little better. And just to give a little color commentary on that, for instance, everyone knows about the north, south Indian Creek crossing 71st, going up to Dickens. Cause everyone sat in that terrible traffic or knows somebody who sat in that terrible traffic. But for instance, going from the Carillon to, um, Indian Creek can sometimes take 20 minutes and that's three blocks So, you know, that's not acceptable. So clearly something is, is amiss. So the, the, the third and last effort that I'd like to, uh , to briefly touch upon is something that is just in getting off the ground as we speak. And that is to engage the university of Texas to do a comprehensive look into North beach. And that would be a comprehensive evaluation that would look at all modes, not just vehicles, but pedestrian safety , bicycle safety and micro mobility safety. And our, we are collaborating with our public works department. We reached out to several universities, had interviews with them, asked them questions and out of, and they were all fantastic out of the universities. And I believe it was about four or five that we reached out to university of Texas at Austin. Um, you know, really, really shown through they, they, they , they, we believe they've got the, the resources and the right approach for our city. Um, they're not only going to look at this as a regular traffic study, as a traffic engineer would look at it, but they're going to look at it from a behavioral perspective to see how we can, you know, perhaps not just change traffic patterns, uh, within this area, but also behavior. Uh, through different strategies. And they've done this work, uh, for other, other cities in the country. So we're excited about that. We still need to go through a procurement process, uh, for that. Um, so right now we're in, we're having the discussions with the preferred university, which is the university of Texas. And we're seeing how we can potentially move that effort along. So those are the three efforts that I wanted to touch upon that, uh, uh, we're seeing how we can potentially move that effort along. Um, that, uh, focused on this area. So there, you know, there, there hasn't been a, a lack of, a focus. Um, but it is, it is a challenging intersection. It is not an easy solution. Otherwise it would have already been identified and implemented. Uh, and it's a balance. It's a careful balance because if you improve traffic, it may be at the expense of, um, either, you know, including a bicycle lane or, um, micromobility, uh, facility. So it's needs to be carefully looked at. And we believe we have a plan to do that going forward. Do you need anything legislatively from us, um, to present the traffic findings, the traffic study findings to the county? Would it be useful to have something from the commission or are you just going to keep working your magic and keep us posted? Um, let us have the first meeting with the county staff and see how it goes. If they're open-minded and open to changes because some of the changes are pretty drastic. Uh, some of those signal timing plans for some of these streets up there have been that have been, you know, in place for decades and haven't been refreshed. And there's, there's so much more development now. There's, there's, it's, there's so much, uh, you know, uh, change in that area. And, but yet the signal timing plans have remained predominantly the same for many years. So we're going to have that conversation with county staff first. And then, you know, commissioner, we brief you periodically on this effort. We'll let you know how it, how it goes. And if we need a city commission resolution that has proven to be helpful in the past. Um, what is your timeframe to, um, go to the county with these findings and the procurement for the UT Austin vendor ? So, uh, with regard to the pilot project finding, uh, that 's within the next 30 days. That's, uh, you know, as soon as we can get a meeting with them. So I think within the next 30 days, we can have that, uh, first, uh, conversation with them. And with regard to the university of Texas effort, uh, my next step on that is to, to work with procurement to see what would it take to move forward with the university of Texas. And my understanding is that there's federal grant money that we can use to defray the costs. Is that, uh, I'm, I'm not, at the moment I can't think of a grant program, but. No, I thought I'd been told that by somebody, but okay. Um, but funding will be, funding will be an issue presuming that we can move forward with the university of Texas. Once we finalize the scope and the price proposal, uh, obviously this is not something that's already cooked into our budget. So we'd be approaching. I thought it was something that UT Austin had. We can talk about offline. I thought there was something there that helped defray some of the, the net costs. Um, okay. So it went through the chair. If, um, if we can keep this here and just get an update in the next month. And I appreciate you bringing this item forward over the past five years. There have been 175 accidents at the center. May I speak please? Yes, of course. We always open up. We always open up items to members of the public wishing to speak. So yes, you're welcome. Um, I'm Myra Diaz Baracavoli. Thank you for my, for allowing us this time. Um, I just want to add, I didn't realize this item was going to be on the agenda, but I want to add that some years back there was an overpass. You all recall on 63rd street. It was taken down the conversations with FDOT in the city before that overpass was taken down and they included, uh, such things as, um, no truck traffic going through Alton Road, heading westbound and then heading, uh, southbound on Alton to get to Julia Tuttle. That truck traffic was going to continue or stay on, uh, on , uh, go to Collins Avenue, um, if they were heading south bound. Right now, if you are on Indian Creek heading southbound, you have four lanes of traffic. Two lanes go into 63rd street, ultimately Alton Road, and then two lanes into Collins Avenue, which is a five lane road when you include the turning lane. And it is also a multifamily commercial zoned street. Alton is single family. It doesn't appear to us as Alton Road residents that we should have the same amount of traffic pushed towards Alton as you have going into Collins Avenue. So if you can include some of that into your study, because I think one lane would be more than sufficient considering the zoning and the types of, um, um, dwellings on each road. Um, additionally, I understand that there is timing on this , on the lights that are monitored by Dade County. However, the timing on the lights that take you into 63rd street when you're heading southbound, um, do not change that frequently. It's, it's more of a continuous flow of traffic. At least it feels that way. And so there appears to even have more traffic going into Alton than you have going into Collins Avenue. So much so that in the mornings when you're by Mount Sinai, in the morning is when the traffic heads, um, um, north or head south on Alton. The cars line up sometimes four or five blocks before they get to the intersection by Sinai to eventually get into, uh , the Julia Tuttle causeway. So if you could look at those items, the no truck signage, unless you were servicing something on Alton. Um, and the timing of those lights and the reduction of one lane heading, uh, westbound. And Myra, how effective was that in the past when the no, uh, truck signage was that? It was never implemented. It was just talk. Uh, remember we were just dealing with FDOT and saying, this is what we want. What we wanted, what was agreed to ended up being differently. Understood. Uh, I see, uh, Tricia with her hand raised on zoom. Uh, welcome Tricia. You have two minutes to speak. Good morning, Tricia. Tricia, you are muted. If you could please unmute yourself. Hi. Sorry about that. Um, Tricia Hopkins. I've lived on Alton road for over 30 years. And I have to agree with Myra that when that overpass came down, all of a sudden, every single 18 wheeler is on Alton road, um, heading southbound to get onto to Juliet, the C ousin model or going northbound. And, um, it is really a detriment to our neighborhood because they don't follow the speed limits and it's, it's very difficult. And it also adds to the problem. That's agenda number eight with the trucks coming through. So I just wanted to agree with that, that, um, I don't believe that the, all those trucks should be coming down or being sent towards us. That should also be bearing on Collins Avenue. Thank you, Tricia. Any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item? If you're on zoom, you can raise your hand on zoom. Uh, let me ask our staff. Uh, is this something that has been explored? Have you, or do we even have the ability to limit these larger trucks from going down Alton road towards 63rd street? It's, it's not been explored, uh, in recent years. Um, as, as resident, uh, Myra pointed out, it was, I think a topic of discussion many years ago and then never got implemented. Quite honestly, it was many years ago before even my time. I can't remember. I don't know why F dot chose to not implement the truck restrictions along Alton road, but, uh, it's, it's been many years. So we can, we can revisit that with F dot. Sure. So is your mathosalinas. So if the trucks, are we talking southbound or northbound Alton or both? Southbound. Southbound from, uh, from North beach to, because they have to get on the title. So if we make them go down Collins, then they'll cross 41st street. And so we want to now further back up 41st street with sem is and trucks heading out of the city. I, that's probably why I would be my guess. That may be why, but at the end of the day, 41st street is a commercial road and it has more lanes than Alton road. And they have also, uh, built in speed control, which Alton road does not have the built in speed control are the school zones for Nautilus, Temple Beth Shalom and North beach elementary school. So you are only allowed to go at a certain speed in the morning, 20 miles per hour. We don't have that on Alton. So I would, they end up going on Alton road, but I wouldn't support the trucks being forced to go down 41st street. Cause 41st street is at capacity right now. And it backs up all the way, you know, all of the condo buildings on Collins corridor as well. They're impacted by that and they can't move either. And it's also highly pedestrian as well. I think we can't move out of our driveways in the morning and we understand that is self-five blocks. Yeah. But perhaps, but perhaps, uh, as commissioner, Mattel Sal inas is mentioning an alternative that could be explored as well is the speed, the speed of, of the vehicles. Um, because if, you know, a lot of times the problems emerge from ways from Google that send these vehicles down certain streets. And you can go faster on Alton road as opposed to another street or of the same speed, or you're not being limited by the speed. Um, then they'll send you down that way. So I do think to the extent that we could look at the speed of a street like Alton road, where you have single family homes. I think generally, uh, any street that is primarily residential out to road, North Bay road, streets like Pra irie Avenue. LaGorse Drive, Pine Tree Drive. LaGorse, Pine Tree. You know, these are all primarily residential single family homes. You have, you have families living there with, with children. Uh, in general, we should be looking to have, uh, a lower speed limit in those areas. And perhaps that can encourage the behavior that we are looking for from these trucks, as opposed to saying trucks won't be allowed to go down the street. Well, I could see how from a regulatory perspective, they might not be able to allow them. But if everyone, regardless of the type of vehicle is held to the same standard of a lower speed limit, that might, uh , perhaps yield, you know, some of the outcomes that, uh, that you're looking for. Commissioner, you're correct. But we have a 30 mile per hour speed limit on Alton Road. And as much as the police try to enforce it when they are allowed to get, to be there, it doesn't work. They're going on an average of 60 miles per hour on a single family residential street that has children. And where people have to back out of their driveway to get to work, to get to school. Um, it's a problem. And it hasn't been addressed. I understand the problems on 41st street, but try to eliminate a traffic, uh, light that's in the middle of the streets. In the middle of a block, you have a traffic light between Royal Palm and Prairie Avenue. Why? To further stop traffic from flowing. You have a light on Royal Palm. You have one on Prairie Avenue. That's related to pedestrian. That's related to pedestrianism. And so we, we need to accommodate for everyone. We need to accommodate for vehicles. We need to accommodate for pedestrians and bicycles. So, so it's a, it's a balancing act. So we hear you. Uh, thank you, Myra. I'm going to recognize commissioner Matos Salinas, then commissioner Baud. So then we can take an action on this item. Uh, just Jose question. So implementing more speed tables on Alton road. Has that been assessed or? That has been requested in the past. F. Does not allow speed tables. They don't generally allow any vertical traffic calming along Alton road. Uh, it is a state road. It's an evacuation route. These are not our rules. These are their rules, but they, they have what they will allow. They, they consider speed mitigation measures. Uh, and they have some strategies for speed mitigation, but traffic calming, as we know it to be with the rubberized, uh, speed tables or speed, speed tables or rubber on speed cushions. They will not allow that on the state road. We also not raised crosswalks, just crosswalks with some signage. We also requested that there be a traffic light moved from the middle of 51st Street and Alton, a crossing to the park, on Fisher Park, to the end of the block, where you have intersections with 51st Street people coming in from Pine Tree-Lagore's Drive into Alton Road. Maida, if I may, because I don't want to lose track of this item. And your issue is very important. And I think perhaps we should send a referral to the committee to address the issue of the speeding and the traffic on this residential portion of Alton Road, because it is concerning. And I know we have had fatalities even there. More fatalities than any other street on Miami Beach. But just to let you know, FDOT says there is not enough traffic on Alton or speed to warrant the crosswalks or the traffic light at that intersection. So, Mr. Attorney, let's work on a referral to put on next Wednesday's meeting to discuss the ongoing, on a regular basis, the ongoing issues that we have on Alton Road. Commissioner Bob. Yeah. Thank you, Myra, for elevating this with your institutional knowledge. You know, FDOT is complicated to work with. And my favorite, super favorite response from them is, we're not going to manage our everyday traffic because we 're concerned about what happens during an emergency. Well, no, we're not talking about not having people using Alton Road to get off the island in an emergency. It's a totally different conversation. So, to me, that is, it's a, a, a, a, a, a specious argument But I don't have control over FDOT. So, I've already, you know, thank you, Chair, for making the referral. I've already inquired to our attorney and to create a new item on this topic because it is super, super important. And I yield to you. You can lead that. So, I'll yield to you. Great minds think alike. So, my point, though, is that, you know, we've looked at this years ago. And FDOT is, has its, its playbook. But we, as a city, have looked at it years ago and only had the options that FDOT has given us or not given us. The traffic patterns have changed. The volumes have changed. We have things that we can potentially do about limiting the size of trucks that come into the city or where and when they can go onto certain streets, potentially. And that's kind of the stuff that I want to explore also. I mean, the vendors who come into the Miami Beach treat us as a big city, whereas, actually, we were not. We don't have very wide streets. Most places, and a lot of the places where we do have wide streets, they're primarily residential, whether it's Alton Road or Collins, one way or the other. So, I think it is a much bigger conversation. It's going to be pulled out of this item and be handled separately. So, it's going to take a minute because everything does. But between this and the item number eight with the flooding, they're quite interrelated. And, again, you know, from where we might have last looked at this 15 or 20 years ago to where we are today and where we're going to be in five years, the volume of traffic, the type of traffic, and the intensity of traffic has changed dramatically. So, it definitely warrants a whole separate investigation. And, Commissioner Bunt, following up on that comment, with the 175 crashes that we've had going back to the location of 63rd Street and Indian Creek and Collins Avenue, Jose, do we have any idea on the type of vehicle that was engaged in these crashes? Are these commercial vehicles that are engaging in these crashes, these regular cars from our residents or visitors? Do we know the type of vehicle that is creating the safety situation at this intersection? Mr. Chair, I don't think it's any one vehicle in particular I don't have those crash reports. We'd have to go through those crash reports to see if there is a type of vehicle which is contributing to these crashes But I'm not aware that it's any one. At least when Eftot did their study two years ago, that was not found or that was not a finding of that study, that there's any one type of vehicle that is creating or causing an abnormal amount of crashes. And the last thing I want to say, just I'd be remiss if I don't mention that study from two years ago that Eftot did, we also asked for an additional crosswalk on the north leg of Indian Creek and 63rd because there is no crosswalk there. There's only three crosswalks. It's a four-leg intersection, but there are only three crosswalks. And they also did not support that adding a crosswalk on the north leg because it would be detrimental to the level of service, the operations, mainly for vehicles at the intersection. Alex? Yes. Anecdotally, I know that a lot of the, I don't know if it's the majority or 20%, but I do know that a lot of the crashes at 63rd are overnight crashes when people are speeding around that, the suicide curve at high speeds, often under, you know, influence, not always, and lose control of their vehicles because it was happening like once a month there for a little while. So, you know, again, I don't know statistically if that's the majority, but I do know that's a significant part of the issue. And now, and thank you for that, Commissioner. There's two curves at 63rd Street. The specific location is, you know, when you're approaching the bridge. There's, there's, when you're going east, there's, there's a curve when you're going east on 63rd Street. No, it's when you're going north on Alton and making the turn to go across east. It goes from being a straightaway, which is, you know, quite fast. If you're on the street by yourself with no cops at two o' clock in the morning and you're in your rented Lambo for the weekend or whatever, and you lose, you misjudge the curve, you misread the street conditions, you're not functioning at your best. And it's that curve that seems to be the one that causes the drama. And so I just wonder, I, you know, absent a solution is right now. There's not a solution. FDLT has not provided us a solution. The city doesn't have a solution. It can implement as well. But what we do know is that at nighttime, which is what the pattern from our perception is that this is a nighttime issue at this, at this intersection with this curb. I mean, is it possible to close that intersection? Like if you know that the issue is at nighttime during certain hours, the late night hours of that, of that intersection to have that intersection close between the hours of 12 AM and 5 AM and make traffic stay on Collins or , or another route. Well, that's the issue is that there is no other route. And so, and look, I don't take anybody's life or injury for , for granted or to minimize it. I'm not saying that every one of those lives lost was not a tragedy. And also, by the way, even if you don't lose your life in a car accident, I mean, I was T-boned by a truck going on 12 years ago. I still have the injuries. And, you know, I walked away from that accident. And, and so accidents have trauma in all different forms. So for those people who have to navigate from North Beach to South Beach and back again, taking away one of the only two ways to get north and south isn't really realistic. You know, maybe what we could do and do a pilot program is on, on weekends where we know there are a lot of visitors coming into town, have a police detail station there overnight, perhaps to catch speeders before they hit the curve. But that doesn't address the more ongoing issues of, you know, I, listen, I take that southbound Alton Road, um, from, from my apartment down to City Hall all the time. And if I don't time it early enough, I'm sitting in traffic before I can even get to the merge to continue south. Um, so there are so many complicated issues because we're, you know, we're a growing city. There's a ton of construction. There's a ton of road work. You know, every time I curse the public works project that 's slowing us down. I'm like, oh, but thank God there's a public works project slowing us down. So it's a lot of competing issues, not least of which is that we don't have control over all of our roadways. And so things that we know, um, make sense for the residents are not approved by the state and that, that limits some of our solutions, but I, it warrants a separate new look. Commissioner, are you referring to the curve just to make sure on 63rd street that heads southbound onto Alton? Um, because that has been the one with the most crashes. And at one point he'll remember cause he was here, um, FDOT proposed and then took away from the table when they thought about it twice the possibility of doing a traffic circle at that intersection, which would slow down traffic. Um, but then they took it back because they said that there wasn't enough land. Right. Um, of a different opinion because there is land, maybe not owned by FDOT, but it is owned by the city. There's that little park. Well, not just the park, but, um, it's the area that goes from, um, that curve into North Bay road, that area there, not North Bay road, but the area before North Bay road. Um, is city property and that could give them more of a radius for a more, a significant traffic circle. So I think it, look, we're going to have a separate item on this. It's going to be a long discussion. Um, there are multiple issues that need to be addressed that, you know, the accidents, the, um, the trucks going down. What is basically residential road, um, traffic backups. So we'll start this process and we'll figure out how we can move forward. May I speak for a moment? Lori K. Davis. I've been on Alton road at 59 65 since 2001. So initially, uh, FDOT wanted to sell the road to the city and the city declined. So we'll start with that. And I've been on the road to that. In my 26, 25 years of dealing with FDOT, it's, it needs to be speed enforcement. And FDOT says that in the city says, no, it needs to be, um , traffic calming. But a really easy thing to start with, I have never seen our police, um, enforce speeds below. It has to be 10 miles over before they start enforcing. And I've been told that then residents get all upset if they're given a ticket and they call the commissioners and they call the mayor. So that's a really easy, doesn't require a meeting. Start ticketing earlier. And then that's, that's the way we train. And I've never seen, we talk about that corner. I've never seen police enforcement on that 20 mile an hour, not during the day. I know more happens at night, but nobody's going the speed limit and they're not even being penalized until they're at least 10 miles an hour. So I will, I will tell you that that is a very easy fix. And I'm going to have a chat with our chief about it. And you know, I have sped in my life. I really enjoy driving quickly and I'm not a race car driver. So when I get a ticket, I'm like, you know what? And I don't, by the way, I don't do it in the city. I don't, I'm not a crazy driver, but it's fun to drive fast That's why people enjoy race cars and racing. So, but if you, if you do something and you get caught, pay the ticket and get over yourself, right? If you get a parking ticket, you pay the ticket and get over yourself. So for residents who are speeding and then get pissed that they get caught and cry to somebody on the commission, get over yourself. I have no sympathy for that whatsoever. If you don't want to get a speeding ticket, don't speed. It's very simple. I have absolutely zero tolerance for that. So I can't speak for my colleagues, but that's my position on it. Oh, listen, I, and, and I, I hope no one ever thinks of calling me to help them with a, with a police ticket. That I, it's not a thing that I would entertain. It's not a thing that, that, that, that happens or should ever happen. Um, commissioner, I think the might've was just, just asked you for, for, for clarity because there are two, there are, there are two curves. There's the curve. And I want to make sure that the public, I want to make sure I myself, you know, understand correctly here. There's a curve when you're coming down, uh, Indian Creek and you turn right towards the bridge. It's not that curve. It's the one from Alton going up or down, but it's typically, my understanding is it's typically going up Al ton and taking it to the right to go across, going from west to east. It's that curve. And those individuals, they're going to cross their whole intent is to cross the bridge and then to continue on Collins Avenue or to go down, um, to go down Indian Creek. And if the issue is primarily in the evening hours. It's usually a super late night, super late night. Like that's not when we have our highest traffic congestion If we know that that is, that is when that, that problem occurs. I almost feel, you know, if we know there's a public safety situation, let's close from Indian Creek to the bridge during the late night hours. Because if this is happening on weekends, which usually is what happens from, from my just perspective based on the comments I see in my emails and in social media, this is happening late night and weekends. So people are speeding, speeding through there. Then let's, let's force them to go down, you know, the main corridor, the main commercial corridor, which is 41st Street, had them go down, uh, Collins Avenue. Those streets don't have these awkward curves that are creating the safety issue. And perhaps it might be prudent just to consider that schedule during, during weekends between the hours of midnight and 5:00 AM. And just throwing a number out there without seeing what the data, uh, represents. Perhaps we should go back to the data to make it more analytical, say, you know, from the east portion of the bridge to the west side of Indian Creek, it's going to be closed. And you just can't cut through there. You have to go down 41st Street. You have to go down Collins Avenue. The challenge is, is that sometimes, and I, I suppose we can coordinate this. So not, I'm not saying no, but just to put out there. Um, I have gone north on Collins coming up from 41st and there are nights when there's an event at the fountain blue or, or multiple events at the fountain blue and, um, at, um , the Soho house. So there are black cars lining up and, and blocking all of that. Um, and then God forbid you also, cause this happened to me a couple of weeks ago. There's also road work on, on Collins. So literally you had four lines, lanes of traffic going down to one. And normally that wouldn't be an issue, but it happened that there was, um, there were multiple events going on at the same time. And it was ridiculous. It was, you know, like Thursday night at 10 o'clock when there should be no traffic at all. Um, so it's, it's an interesting idea to discuss. I, I, I am very sensitive to the idea of limiting. As it is, we only have two ways to get from north to south. That I understand. And that, that gets complicated cause if one is compromised , then you're, then you're really stuck. Sure. Until we get our water taxi and we can just have the water taxi. Um, I'm going to recognize Manuel and then we'll close this item to go to the next item. Good morning, Manuel. Manuel. Hi. This is Manny Corrales. I live in the, uh, 63rd street in Collins area. And thank you, commissioner Bob for your interest in the traffic congestion in that area. Uh, so I just wanted to go back to Jose and his statement about, uh, previous FDOT studies of westbound traffic at 63rd street. And, uh, well, I understand that traffic would have to be stopped in the southbound Indian Creek lanes to allow westbound traffic. It seems like if this, the, the signals are timed correctly , it would not be such a, such a big deal. Um, I, I suspect that a lot of these traffic, uh, traffic accidents are happening when people are going northbound in Indian Creek and have to make a U turn to go south and then to, to gain access to westbound 63rd street. I mean, that is just a terrible solution. I can't imagine that FDOT agrees with that. It's just a free for all. I've made videos of that and I've shared them with a commissioner. But, um, please look, look at that again, maybe more actual ized study. Um, it's, it's, it's a real concern. I think even a better solution would be just to allow north bound traffic on Collins to turn on 65th going west and then join southbound Indian Creek so that they can eventually go west on 63rd street. I hope everybody follows, uh, what, what, what I'm talking about. Anyway, um, that's, that's one thing. The, the second thing is also the loud horns and signals that are going off when the bridge opens. And honestly at two in the morning, three in the morning, you can hear them going off. I have an app on my phone where I've been able to, uh, um, measure the sound and it goes up to 61, 65 decibels, which at three in the morning, it's just really odious thing to, to have waking you up. So anyway, please don't give up on the study and, uh, maybe something better can come up out of this. All right, commissioner. So, uh, we'll continue this item to next month. Yes, please. Commissioner, if I could just ask you, you wanted a referral, uh, for Alton road, uh, to be drafted today. So I just want to clarify what it's to discuss ongoing traffic problems on Alton road caused by increased traffic and increased truck traffic. Just general. I mean, and, and I think commissioner bod is working on this as well. As was just mentioned, my concern is the residents are, are complaining about this, not only the volume of traffic that is going down Alton road in this residential area, area of Alton road, but the speed of the traffic as well. And I think, I think it's those two things, the volume and the speed and the type of traffic also commercial vehicles. Got it. And who is the sponsor? That's commissioner bod. We'll, we'll, we'll, we're going to move on to our next item. There was a resolution passed by this commission. I'll send it to Mr. Rosenwald and it talks as to all the issues of Alton that was sent to the state. Um, but nothing happened. I'll send it to you and it talks about all the issues there Myra, could you please copy me on that too? But then we're going to go to item number five. Um, wait, I'm sorry. Item number four. Item number four is discussed vehicular and pedestrian traffic conditions at the Miami beach convention center. This item was sponsored by commissioner bond. I wish about your recognize. I'm turning into the traffic girl. Um, yeah, so this, this is a, an item that, um, I'm bringing because as we come into work during the day, um, increasingly happily, we see the convention center being used more than it has been in years past. And that's only going to increase with the construction completion of the hotel. Um, I know that some of the traffic is because of the construction and of the hotel. So I'm not even counting that as an issue. Um, uh, right now we have, um, uh, ride shares being, not being geocache so that they drop and stop and pick up wherever they want to. Um, people are wandering across the cross streets, um, out of the side streets across, uh, regardless of where the, the actual crosswalks are. Um, there's confusion. Um, I've seen people turn making a left turn to go north on convention center drive. Um, not realizing that they are making an incorrect turn into oncoming traffic, a lane of oncoming traffic. Um, it's just complicated. It's messy. It's only going to get worse. People trying to get from convention center drive into the garage and getting backed up there because it's slow. Like, I think we just need to do now that we know what the scope is going to look like. Um, I think we need to do a comprehensive review of, of this area of town center, um, city center rather, and look at how to manage ride share, how to better, um, um, mark the road. So people know where they go deal with the queuing of picking up, um, and, and, or trying to get in and out of the garage deal with, um, people trying to cross from pride park or other parts, um, west of on the west side of convention center drive and just figure this out better. It doesn't seem to be as big of an issue on the other side of the convention center, um, on Washington. So it's really, you know, you see people streaming towards the convention center in the mornings and streaming back out when the convention ends for the day on this side of the street much more than, uh, this side of the convention center much more than you do on the other side. Um, so that's, that's the impetus for this. Thank you, commissioner. So just very briefly, uh, there's several factors that are contributing and creating the perfect storm, if you will, in this area of convention center drive 17th and along convention center drive, not the least of which is the construction, the ongoing construction, which has, it recon figured the lanes, uh, on convention center drive approaching 17th street. It's even more challenging now to make a turn if you're coming from 17th street and you want to make a right turn onto convention center drive, or even if you're coming from the other side of 17th street, turns are now more difficult to maneuver because of the constrained, uh, space as a result of the hotel construction. So that is, you know, certainly not, not helping the situation. As a result of that, we had to, uh, we did something which is good for pedestrians. We implemented a diagonal crosswalk, uh, which has helped pedestrian traffic. However, that diagonal crosswalk, because a diagonal cross walk is longer than a perpendicular crosswalk requires more time for pedestrians, which means less time for vehicles to go through the intersection. So again, uh, uh, uh, delicate balancing act there, uh, but we needed to do that diagonal crosswalk in order to, uh, accommodate safe pedestrian movements from the, you know, the south side of 17th street to the north side of 17th street. Um, yeah, uh, uh, a lot of, a lot of different issues, right. Share is, is also part of the friction that's caused there along, um, along convention center drive. Um, we, um, one of the things that we outlined here that we could do going forward is, uh, try to establish a, some sort of a program, uh, in collaboration with our parking department and rideshare companies to identify the areas that could be geo-fence for ride share pickup and drop off. Mm-hm. It's been tried in the past. Um, sometimes, um, successful, it's, it's worked better than others. It's been tried more than once, but I think we need to, to really identify a real plan that will work for ride shares, uh, both pickup and drop off. And, um, I think that will help, uh, a lot of the friction there because I'm sure we've all got caught behind a ride share that just decides to stop, you know, on the one lane going southbound on convention center drive to pick up and drop off. And then I myself have driven on the opposite lane of traffic to go around that ride share. And Jose, I mean, perhaps for the drop off, it might be difficult to manage because you just never know where a passenger will tell a driver to drop them off at. It might be mid block or might go to the destination, but most certainly for the pickup, if we work with the ride share companies, at least on the, on the pickup, you won't have mid block pickups, uh, from, from the ride share company. So, you know, most certainly to the, to the point that we can stop these mid block, um, vehicles stopping, uh, it might be helpful to, to explore that. And that, for sure. And, in, in, in addition to the other thing that is to me very obvious and, um, that going southbound, you have, you have a southbound lane, only one with, uh, with, um, with a northbound lane just to the east of it and then the median. I think people get confused. They did, for sure. All the time you see people treating it like if it were two southbound lanes. And if, and if the behavioral practice tells you that that is what people are reverting to, that's telling us that we 're forcing on drivers something that doesn't come natural to them. And that, that tells me we're creating a safety situation. If, if, if this is, if this is what the design, the built environment is indicating to people that, that northbound lane is actually a southbound lane. I think perhaps we should be considering, you know, whether , whether we should just convert that to be a southbound lane. Is that, that, that is what the driver's reflex is, is telling them. And commissioner, uh, bond, let me recognize, uh, commissioner Matos Salinas who had some comments as well. And then I'll go back to you. So thank you, Mr. Chair and, um, the sponsor. I'm not sure if this was your intent, but my understanding of this traffic issue is not the traffic that's crossing, not the pedestrian crosswalk and not over there on. Um, what is that? Over there. The issue is when you walk out this door to chambers and you look down right where the convention center is, it becomes a mess because people are trying to turn left to get to the parking garage right here. Some people are trying to go straight to drop off at the convention center. Other folks are trying to go right outside to go to Lincoln road. That intersection downstairs has high pedestrian volume and high traffic volume and absolutely zero signalization, four way stops, stop signs. There's nobody there directing that three way intersection. So my suggestion to you would be when we have a big convention or sometimes we have two big conventions, which happened when Hydrox and the thrift con happened at the convention center at the same time, which created utter chaos down here. We have, we're pre prepared and we have some type of traffic specialist directing traffic at that three way intersection. So people can turn left, go straight northbound, southbound , drop off, head out, park in the garage. But that intersection right downstairs, that's the problem, which I think, uh, sponsor commissioner bought. Was that what precipitated this item? It's all of this. So yes. And also the, basically it's from day down to 17th and everything along, along it. So all of the, all of the intersections, all of the friction points, all the people turning one way into the wrong way because the street doesn't clearly indicate, you know, as, as, um, the chair said, people are used to thinking of it as a two way street. So yes, all of these things are, are issues. And perhaps one of the things that you mentioned, uh, commissioner, Mattel Salinas and Mr. Director, I don't know if it would be possible is signalization. Mm-hmm. You know, having a traffic light, uh, at that, at that, uh, three point intersection, uh, perhaps might be something that we should consider because it does it. And commissioner Mattel Salinas is on point. That intersection gets chaotic. I don't know. I don't know if anyone has ever been injured there. And if they haven't, it's, it's a miracle because between the volume of pedestrians walking towards the convention center and mixed with the mixed with the amount of vehicles in that very small areas, like they're all competing. Mm-hmm . They're all competing and there's no coordination. And Jose, this is a question for you since you're the traffic professional and I'm not, and you have studied this much longer than I have. Is a signal a better idea than to have a four way, three way stop there? Because I could also see where a signal might, if it's not timed correctly, back things up onto date, but someone there, but just, there needs to be somebody managing that because sometimes people need to turn left to head wherever they need to go. And it's just really tough. So can, can we get a traffic management specialist down there, a traffic, what are they called? What are traffic people called? Traffic safety specialists. Those people. Public safety specialists. The police. Whatever the people that we have on 41st street during rush hour, they need to be deployed right there when we have a high volume of events. And mostly it's on the weekends. So it won't conflict with the Monday through Friday 41st street traffic, but they, they need to be there and they need to be making sure that traffic flows safely. Agreed. And so one of the things that we've done after that, uh, very chaotic, uh, conference, um, was we're having now, and it's a, it's a, it's really a, you know, a team effort. It's police, it's parking transportation, and it's the Miami beach convention center staff. And we're having meetings prior to major conferences to highlight those that we believe are going to be problematic from a, you know, just activity standpoint, ride share, pedestrians, cars, you know, everything. Uh, and police is trying to proactively assign those public safety specialists to these hotspots along convention center drive. And I believe you're referring to convention center drive and 18th street, the street that leads out of the, uh, the garage here. So, uh, absolutely. There's no, you know, there's only a stop sign for 18th street, and there is a lot of activity, uh, conflicting activity between pedestrians and cars and people that don't know that the street design itself quite candidly is, is a bit confusing, especially if you're not from here. So, um, it's that confluence of factors. There has not, to answer your question, there has not been a, um, localized study at that intersection to see if it warrants always stop control or a signal, uh, for that matter. There hasn't been that something that, you know, could be a next step. Um, but in the meantime, something that I believe has helped is when there are public safety specialists there, either from our police department or from the Miami beach. Convention Center, uh, staff. Um, it, it, it helps because at least they can sort of. So then. To get a study for that intersection, because it's only going to get worse when the hotel opens, people are going to be coming in and out employees. You know, that's, it's going to, there's going to be a lot more traffic. So what do we need to do to get a study? Can we make a motion from this committee to. You know, send something to commission to, to study that intersection and what capacity is and what would be best there. Um, do you, do you need direction from that? If, if you do, we're happy to support you with the motion. I think we, depending on the price of, of the, the, the analysis, which isn't too much, I, we may be able to, to absorb it from our, from our operating budget and, you know , do that analysis. It's not a complicated intersection. And so saying, but let me ask you this because this directly ties to the activation of the convention center and the convention center operates as an enterprise fund. And perhaps this is something we can partner with the convention center that has its own revenue generating activities and has its own funds that need to be spent related to convention center activities, uh, to address this. Uh, you know, one of my questions actually just listening to this conversation when we have the public safety specialist. There are a public safety specialists there on convention center drive and 18th street. Is that being, uh, paid for by the convention center? I don't know, Mr. Chair. I don't know. I don't, um, don't see police here. I'm not sure who funds that. Police. Oh, yeah. Over there. Sorry. Uh, who funds the public safety specialists when they're out there for a conference, uh, controlling traffic? So that's something we can follow up on that. Uh, I, I think that should be answered by the appropriate person for the police department. I'm not sure if the, uh, if the officers that we have here are the right individuals to answer that question, but perhaps we can just follow up with, with an answer on that. Um, because, you know, certainly we are pooling police resources for convention center related activity. That means that our residents don't have those police services where they need it and it should be paid for by, by the convention center. I totally agree with that. Um, and that's probably a larger conversation, like depending on the scale of the convention. Um, if they, cause I wouldn't imagine that every single, well, maybe going forward every single event in the convention center, hopefully we'll need that, but it should be part of the fees that they are charged to manage to, to get access to our convention center. Um, a separate thought, uh, we have been talking with will about talking to truck drivers and truck operators about loading zones, right? There's this whole process now where there's education and they have to sign a thing and there's a phone number. And if the drivers are not, um, adhering to the rules of the loading zones, then in addition to getting fined, they can get reprimanded by their jobs or whatever. I know it's a little bit more complicated with ride shares because it's not as tightly cohesive a pool of employees. They're not employees, but maybe we can also, in addition to talking to ways and, um, Google maps and all the other things about making, having people go around into different areas when they're trying to go north and south. Maybe we can also talk to them, um, to the ride share folks about, um, having part of the onboardings. I know there's virtually no training, but having part of the onboarding, um, be that you can only pick people up and drop people off in certain areas of the convention center campus. Um, when you, when you request a ride, the, the driver's shown exactly where you can go and where you can't go. And so maybe you request a pickup. The option to be picked up right where you're standing is not shown on the app. You have to walk over. Like when you're at an airport, you have to walk to a certain section of the terminal, a certain level, whatever. So maybe we can start working on, on that with them. I think that's very common sense. Thank you for bringing that up. Commissioner Montel Salinas. So I want to close a loop on what I said earlier, but I also just want to address commissioner bot. I actually don't agree with that. I think people should be allowed to be dropped off and picked off where they want, even if it's in front of the convention center. And if they are requested to walk, then it's just pushing the traffic into another area. And so where do we push it? Do we, do we then now block, you know, another street or another intersection? Do we push it towards Palm view? So I actually would not be supportive of that, of that. But anyway, back to my point, cause I want to close the loop on this. You will be doing a traffic. You're going to look into your budget to see if you can do a traffic study at that intersection to see what would help the traffic flow right there at 18th and convention center drive. Or if it could be funded by the convention center that's even. Correct. But that, that is something that you will be looking into. And okay. Cause I just want to make sure that we have your commitment that you're going to study that because it has something. It takes forever, you know, to study and then to figure out the options and then to implement it. And I really hope something is implemented before the hotel opens. So I just want to close the loop on that. And then if you need, you know, let us know if you need something legislative or an additional budget. Which hopefully you don't because you know, enterprise funds. So, but I just want to have your commitment to that. Right? We'll take just for to memorialize this. We'll take a resolution to the city commission accepting the moving forward with a traffic study at that intersection to see what the best type of traffic control device would be. Okay, great. And in the meantime, when there is two different conventions happening there, you'll have the traffic specialists down there to conduct traffic to help that smoothly. And that's that's more coordinated between our police department, major Feldman and and the Miami Beach Convention Center staff. They have their own, as a matter of fact, their own transportation division there in the Miami Beach Convention Center. And to the extent that that. That that burden can fall on the Convention Center. You know, the Convention Center is managing the facility bringing in these revenues that need to be reinvested into the Convention Center. You know, I don't I don't want to move resources and swarm personnel from where we might be needed if the Convention Center has the ability to have its own traffic management people on the street guiding that is, you know, the Convention Center traffic people, their focus is only the Convention Center, the police department, you know, we're pulling them all over the place. So to the extent that that's possible, that'd be great because Commissioner Matos-Settlinas is right that right there. That right there, Commissioner, is the heart of the of the issue. And you've really identified that together with Commissioner bought on the issue of of the west side of Convention Center Drive. What do you need in order to explore? Can that be as part of that traffic study that you're doing ? Is that a separate issue exploring whether whether we can reconfigure that westbound Convention Center Lane into the two of them being southbound as opposed to one being south bound and the other one being northbound? So that that would require a much more intensive traffic analysis feasibility study of of a redesign. In essence is what I'm hearing if the roadway were to be out. But how is that a redesign? Well, the the western half of the street west of the median those two lanes instead of operating one in each direction, they would both operate southbound, right? Because to the east of the median, the two lanes are operating northbound. So it would be designed as a more conventional street with a median in the middle. But the street is not being redesigned. I mean, the built environment already. It's just restriping. Yeah, it's just restriping. The the the built environment already kind of tells people that that is the configuration of the street, except it's not. The striping is actually what's making it confusing. And we're saying the same thing. But in engineering terms for Miami-Dade County, for example , which would have to approve the new design and the new signalization and the new the new traffic flow, because it 's a change of traffic flow. So Miami-Dade County would need to approve that. But it would require a design. Yeah, isn't that a local Miami Beach street? It is. But even so, when any street to change the directionality of any street, if it's a two way, make it one way or or change the direction of a lane, that does require a traffic analysis and Miami-Dade County approval. And they'll require a set of plans to permit. So there's three takeaways from this conversation. Commissioner, but you've requested for the study and the and the analysis of the ride share pickup drop off areas. We're also requesting an analysis into the configuration of the west side of Convention Center Drive. And in addition to the comments raised by you, Commissioner and Commissioner Mattel Salinas about that intersection on 18th Street and Convention Center Drive and engaging some sort of study to see what is the appropriate mechanism to better address the safety and the flow, whether it's lighting or staff there or stop signs. Is there anything else with this item that we're missing? I don't think so. So. In the meantime, I wonder, you know, we have the parking spaces that are on the east side of City Hall fronting Convention Center Drive. I don't know if it would help with with traffic if we if if we temporarily, while there's that lane reduction there, we temporarily remove those those parking spaces on the east side of City Hall reposition the bike. And the bike share station to be able to accommodate more of the volume of the traffic that's being backed up. I don't know if if that's something that that can help mitigate the situation there. I'm putting it out there because I know that area there is truly a choke point right now. And thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Chair, because it was one of the options that we included in the memo. It was an idea that came up in discussing with the Miami Beach Convention Center folks, police department parking transportation. It's it was just an idea. It has not been looked at in depth. But at least while the hotel construction is occurring, there may be some value in repurposing that parking as a southbound lane. And I would how long do we anticipate having the lane closure fronting fronting City Hall as a result of the construction? Good morning, Tice. You have to push the little button. Tice Fiera, the project liaison for the hotel. That lane closure will remain in place until about March, I believe, of next year. March of next year. And Jose, how long would it take us? You know, I don't want us to do an experiment of this exercise of removing the parking and the bike share station If it's going to take us six months and then the public only benefits from the relief for three months. So how how long will it take us to to go through this exercise? So it's hard to give you a, you know, an exact timeline at this moment because we, you know, devils in the details sometimes. So it sounds like an easy to do concept. We're going to try to keep it as easy as, you know, simple as possible. But we do need to take, you know, at least a preliminary look at it to see how if there are any complications or if it's like easy, very easy and quick to do. Okay, I think it's worth exploring because that is a challenge there. I think we just should do it because so Art Basel. So that lane is going to be closed during Art Basel. So, you know, I think we should just provided there's not any huge complicated roadblocks that I think we should just do it. Let's just take the risk. And Commissioner Bach. I was just going to say something about the ride share that and maybe I misprocessed the information. So correct me if I'm wrong. Are you, you're not talking about getting rid of any of the micro mobility resources? What do you mean? You're not talking about getting rid of the bike share or anything like that? Well, just possibly repositioning it. Okay, but not eliminating it. Okay, but just moving it to a different location. Maybe we can move it further closer, you know, 10 feet closer into the City Hall property or, you know, reposition it somewhere in that vicinity. But I'd like to encourage Jose just to see the feasibility of it because to Commissioner Matos Salinas's point, if come Art Basel, you know, that lane closure is still there, then the problem is just going to go through the sector. No, I just want to make sure we're not taking it away without popping it in someplace else because we've got so many other items where we're talking about, let's increase the ride share, not ride share, the micro mobility, the bike share, because that eliminates cars off the road entirely. So, um, just want to be mindful of all of these, you know, like 14 plates in the air without dropping all of them to try to. 100% agree. Actuate the right answer. Thank you, Commissioner. But are there members of the public wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none in person, none of zoom with their hand raised, Commissioner Matos Salinas, and then we're going to move on I just have one more quick comment. Could we look at maybe taking that city bike station and putting it somewhere inside pride park? Yeah, that's what I was wondering too. We could. There's, there's already a, a city bike station in pride park. It was, it was installed there maybe less than two years ago, as a matter of fact. Uh, but we, we can look to see if, you know, we can add on to that one or another location within pride park. Or even on the city hall property view. If you, if you just move the bike station, you know, 10 feet closer to city hall, uh, we have that big plaza there. Um, we already have a bike, bike share station that takes up parking spots in front of city hall. And we have this giant plaza that doesn't get used very much. So yeah, it might make sense to do that for both of them. Perfect. Thank you, Jose. Thank you, Commissioner. So we're keeping it here and getting updates. Well, I believe Jose was mentioning about sending an item back to commission for the traffic light study. Uh, the lane, uh, redesign on the west side of convention center drive. I don't know if you need direction on the, on, on the, um, portion of convention center drive north of 18th street where we currently have the lane block and the right share. So if you know, is there, is there a motion? That's good. We can show that by acclamation. I'm sure that Stephanie got the intent. I'm sure that we can bring it down. Item number five. Item number five is discuss the maintenance of existing crosswalks along with the need for installation of additional crosswalks in North beach. This item was sponsored by commissioner doming vice mayor doming is and co sponsored by commissioner bomb. Stephanie commissioner. Dominguez. This is your item. Uh, my aid lives up in North beach and he's my eyes and ears up there. And, um, upon further review with the city administration, we found that about 40% of the crosswalks are in bad condition. Uh, 65% of the street signs are in bad condition. And so this is an opportunity for us to make those areas better. Sadly, we've had some fatalities up in North beach at intersections, not, uh, not indicating that it's a result of the crosswalks, um, entirely. But, um, anything that the city can do to make it safer for residents and visitors is important. When looking at the recommendations from staff for this particular item, it did state that there would be areas, um , of improvement. I think that overall the cost would be about $200,000. What I want to hear specifically is which areas and in what order are the improvements recommended? And is it for street walks for crosswalks for both? Thank you, commissioner. Is that your question? I'm sorry. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Cara Boyles. I'm the assistant director for public works and the city engineer. I just joined the city about six months ago. So welcome. Um, so as you know, I'll give a little brief summary that we kind of looked at this in two ways. We did some critical immediate needs and then we also looked at the coordination effort that would be needed, obviously because we have multi jurisdictions, uh, in the north, all across North beach. So, um, there were eight critical locations that were prioritized crosswalks that were prioritized for re-striping and we handled those in house. Um, six of those have been completed. There were two remaining that were adjacent to, uh, on 77th street near school. And so those should be happening either this week or next week now that school is out and we're able to, um, perform that work without any disruption In terms of new sidewalks, or sorry, new crosswalks and signage. Yeah, there are a considerable amount of projects happening in North beach in which we are coordinating with F dot, um, in terms of, um, highlighting and replacing re-striping sidewalk, sorry, crosswalks, as well as signage in along those corridors. So those corridors, I know that, um, our transportation team is very involved in those projects as well. Um, those corridors are 71st street. In fact, as soon as FIFA is completed, a triple R project will take place along 71st street. And so those improvements, all the crosswalks and signage will be replaced there first. Um, a little bit later on in 2028, there will be some improvements on Collins Avenue from 20, I'm sorry, 75th to 63rd. And then a little bit even further in 2029, um, F dot will revisit Normandy between Bay Drive and, um, River site. And we'll also do similar improvements in that section. That area area area of Normandy Drive was originally scheduled to happen earlier, but we coordinated with F dot to delay their project for water main replacement. Um, that public works is doing along that same section. So. So by, um, 2029, um, how many of those, uh, 65 bad cross walks, I think it was 65, um, will be done? Will we then be completed with fixing all of the bad cross walks and bad street signs? I, that is not that they would not all be addressed. So I know that part of the funding request, the $200,000 is for, I believe, additional striping in the future. Is that, is that in your budget? I think the 200,000 is in transportation budget. Um, part of that is a good example is that we have some crosswalks that are more decorative in nature in North Beach. So you have like the sort of like a brick paper crosswalk with the concrete headers that outline them. And what we are doing in terms of the other eight critical ones that I mentioned earlier, we can do that through our push button contractors. So we have a line item pricing and we can do that, but we do not have that sort of striping pricing in our push button. So we would have to do something, um, more specific with a contractor in order to address restriping those concrete headers that align those decorative ones. So those would be making, that's part of, I think, what that funding request is for, for next year. My concern, um, is that they got to this condition to begin with. So when different departments are implementing things, is there a line item for maintenance so that things don't get too beyond repair or critical, uh, like we have in the situation? The ongoing operations of maintenance of anything that we construct. That's what happened. The corrective action would be to add that to the next push button contract so that we have it going forward. So let me, so let me ask you because you've, you've mentioned a number of the, of the larger intersections that are part of larger projects. And I think one of the benefits of this item that, that, uh , Vice Mayor Dominguez has brought forward, perhaps some of the other areas that perhaps aren't as prominent, aren't as large, you know, you've highlighted, it seems, I counted them. I thought it was closer to, to, to, to 50, but you, then you also have a lot of really faded signs with, you know, even, even, uh, children crossings, uh, for, for schools that are completely faded. Uh, clearly, you know, that's, that's very concerning. Uh, so we're talking about, you know, even smaller, uh, smaller, uh, streets, uh, Normac or Bonita Drive or, um, you know, uh, smaller, more localized areas. Of, of, of Dickens Avenue. Mm-hmm. That truly go into, into, into the neighborhoods. Um, you know, to me, it's, it seems like this is one of our basic core services, making, making sure that when people walk out of their homes, they have safe sidewalks, safe streets with the proper, uh, markations to be able to know, uh, that they're safe. And so that, so that cars, uh, don't, don't create a dangerous conditions, uh, for them. If, if the funding were to exist, which I believe something like this, the moment is raised to our attention, that you have unsafe, uh, conditions and bad, uh, striping on cross walks. We should prioritize its repair. Once funding is made available, how long would it take to, uh, repair, uh, these crosswalks? Uh, a, a crosswalk can be striped in, in one day. So, um, it's, it's an immediate, um, response that we can give to something like that. So I, I would say, again, just, just given the amount of concerns we have received over the past several months related to pedestrian safety, the catastrophes and the loss of life that we have seen, uh, recently, uh, in North Beach , uh, associated, uh, with people walking and just trying to get from point A to point B and being, you know, hit by vehicles and losing their lives. You know, we, we can't let those lives be in vain and, uh, and, and we can go back and make sure that other people are , are kept safe. Even if these intersections weren't the direct cause of that, but it's the call to action to make sure that our pedestrian crossings are, are safe. Madam Vice Mayor, if, if you, if, if you were to consider a motion, you know, trying to find within the surplus that we have in the current fiscal year, uh, to find the, the $200, 000 to be able to restripe, uh, and, and improve these conditions and ask the finance committee to consider that as part of the surplus dollars that we have in this fiscal year. I'd be happy to support you, uh, because number one is, you know, making sure we have safe streets, we have safe sidewalks and that we create, uh, safe crossings for our residents. I think that's perfect. Commissioner Bob. I would also be happy to support you, um, in that as well. Um, the, the thing that didn't get covered in this item, um , Jose, you and I have talked about, and I know it's not directly our purview, but the street signs indicating what street number you're at. Um, the green and white signs, um, going up Collins, um, is where I've noticed them the most, but I'm sure they're throughout where they're really terrible. And I think that the feedback we got from camera first, the county or the state is that they're having a supplier issue or some nonsense. Um, so we'll, we don't know if we'll ever see, um, updated replacement street signs. And it's literally to the point where you can't read what you're, what intersection you're at. It's not even about public safety, like the stop sign or the striping. It's like, you don't know where you are. It's not like you don't know you are. You don't, you can't tell where you are. And, um, I would like that to be included in this effort for the, those signs that are particularly egregious, um, to do a survey of them, which I think you had done already when I'm one of our, on one of our walkthroughs, um, and to find out where they are with the vendors. And if they're not someplace that, you know, we're going to see the signs for place in our lifetime, then let's add it to this pot of improvements because it's, it's, it, you know, if you need to call the police and they say, where are you? And you look up for the street sign and all of them are completely off, then, um, that doesn't work. So, and I believe commissioner about as part of, uh, vice mayor Dominguez's item, the estimated funding of $200,000 included, included the efforts to improve the cross, the crosswalks and the signage maintenance. So I believe based on the memo that we have here with commissioner Dominguez's item, the $200,000, um, did that cover the street signs? Like the, the label, I don't know how you, what you call those. No, that was, essentially that's just striping. Um, with regard to signage, we try to forward those to Miami Dade County. Ultimately it is their responsibility. Uh, if it's a traffic control sign, if we're talking about traffic control signs. Well, what do you call the green signs with the white numbers telling you where you are? Is that a traffic control? Those are internally illuminated street, street names signs But does, whose purview does that fall under? Ours or theirs? It should be Miami Dade County, but because they were not being very responsive, then we went to DOT. What we've noticed is that commissioner, some have been replaced, not all of them, but some have been replaced. And, and by the way, it's a citywide issue. Mid beach. Uh, I, I, it's, I, I've seen them in mid beach and North beach, not so much in South beach, but in mid beach also along Collins Avenue. Some of them are in deplorable condition. You can't even read the number. So that's, that's a life safety issue. If you call the police and they say, where are you? So we can come help you. And you're like, I don't know. There's a big building next to me, but you know, somebody just hit me. That doesn't help. So how do we, how do we call that out specifically? And I don't want to exclude if, if mid beach has the same issue. I mean, does it need to be a separate item? Can we fit it into this? Like how do we? It, I mean, ultimately it's a, it's, it's a policy decision It's, it's really the county's responsibility to, the county isn't doing it. So you had to go to FDOT. FDOT did some of them. So how do we now? I mean, if, if, if it's the city's city commission's will to, to, um, basically take that, take that task on, then it would need to be budgeted. And how much would it cost roughly? I don't know what each, I can get that for you. I don't know what each sign would cost to redo. So does it need, would it, would it be better? Would it be better for us to make it a separate item or put it into this one, which generally covers street signs? I think it might, it might be prudent to make it a separate item. Separate just in place. And perhaps there needs to be a sign assessment. I think at some point there was a citywide sign assessment that may have been done. I don't know why that seems to be. There's a way finding. I think that was a different, but, but we did, we did at least North beach assign, um, you know, what do you call them? Illuminated? Illuminated, internally illuminated street name signs. That's a mouthful. Internally illuminated street name signs. There's gotta be a better name. Um, the green sign. Let's just call them the green signs. So, um, like let's, we have it North beach. Let's go do a citywide survey, determine what's missing and , and figure out what it's going to cost and then go through the process again, give the county and F dot the right of first refusal within a reasonable amount of time. And if not, it's like when you have a landlord and they won 't fix your fridge, you just fix the fridge and deduct it for the next month's rent. I'm pretty sure we've, we've done that. Surely we've done that for North beach as a result of our walkthrough. I'm pretty sure we did that for mid beach as well. Developed the list and to the county. The issue is that they're not giving us. So let's find out what, what they have done. So we can cross this off what still remains. And if they don't give us an anticipated deadline or completion date, then we'll go to F dot. And if they say we're not doing it, then let's figure out how we're going to pay for it and get it done. So it's ridiculous. We've got literally the entire war. I take that back. It's not literally in the entire world. We don't have 6 billion people in Miami beach this week, although it feels like it, but we do have the eyes of the entire world on Miami beach. And we have tens and hundreds of thousands of visitors over the next couple of weeks. And for us to not have the fundamentals of street signs look like where we know what we're doing, because we clearly know what we're doing, but it looks ridiculous. And people are looking up trying to figure out where they are. So let's make it a separate item and, and so why don't you. I'm going to send that to the committee. And while so, so that we can work on it, get the feedback from staff and make a proper recommendation at that point. So if, if you want to place that on the agenda, just bring it back to this item. And, again, Commissioner Dominguez, you know, highlighted the very, the very, you know, real situation that without clear marked crosswalks, pedestrians, you know, are unsafe. And, and, and, and, and, you know, the lack of these safe crosswalks, they contribute to injuries, to collisions, ultimately to, to, to fatalities. And, and, and she's, she's worked with the administration in evaluating the need for the installation and the maintenance and the improvements of these, of these cross walks. And then, and to fund this very essential public service that is, goes to the very core of safety for pedestrians. There is a need of $200,000. And so, I think Commissioner Dominguez was, was willing to make a motion requesting that the city commission consider the funding of it and perhaps sending that to, to the finance committee. Yeah, I think I have to put a commission first to send it to finance. So I'll be happy to second that motion. Are there members of the public wishing to speak on this item? If you're on zoom, feel free to raise your hand. If you're in person, feel free to approach the podium seeing none in person and none in zoom. We can show this item, uh, adopted by acclamation. And the, it was a positive recommendation to go back to the commission for $200,000. Is that, was there anything else? No, I'm gonna, I'm writing a referral. A citywide assessment, uh, that Commissioner Mott is going to work on a referral for. Go on the signs citywide on the street signs. And that is, you know, as the commissioner mentioned, yet another important public safety issue. With that, we're moving forward to item number six. Item number six is discuss the potential extension of the six month pilot program for bicycle and micromobility devices storage at large scale events on public property. This item was sponsored by commissioner Fernandez. And I'd like to make a motion to move this item. Um, thank you. I, I, I appreciate that. Um, I just want to make sure, um, you know, as, as we move this, this item forward, and I see we have Francis, uh, from our, uh, tourism and special events department, uh, joining us. I just want to make sure, make sure, because we, we tested this and, and I feel that at the, at the beginning, the test, perhaps it wasn't as widely embraced because perhaps there wasn't the right structure, uh, being communicated to the events of what were some minimum standards, uh, to be implemented. Um, you know, and so, so Francis, I just, if you could walk us through the item, tell us what the administration is, is , is proposing, uh, so that, so we can move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Francis by CEO, uh, interim director for tourism and culture. As you mentioned, we did have a pilot program previously. We presented the results at, uh, in March of this year of the first iteration of that. As you mentioned, it was not highly used at the events that did have it. It was only three events because of the category has to be a large, a large scale special event on public property. Um, from that in discussion, when we presented in March, in discussion in this committee, the direction was for us to work with transportation because transportation has been doing a lot in more micro mobility. More in public spaces for anybody to use regardless of a special event. So what we are proposing now is almost like a multi tier approach where we still would have the requirement for large scale special events to have a space in this, in this extension of the pilot program. But we will also communicate additional spaces that transportation will advise us. So giving any attendee more options. But we also are going to include a requirement for the event to give us, to provide us samples of how they are advertising this because we didn't have that last time. So they may have provided the space, but we don't know if they let their attendees know that this was available to them. So that's going to be another approach of having more communication needed. Um, in working with transportation, we also are looking at adding, make, trying to see if Google will have, uh, the ability to add these to Google Maps. The, the more of the permanent side of the micro mobility parking spaces. So as mentioned, it's, it's a multi tier approach. Uh, one change I did want to know when we originally wrote the memo, it mentioned to include with FIFA events. Clearly though, some of those are already took place. So, uh, if we do extend it, it would probably capture the same events, but with these tweaks. Thank you, Francis. One of the things I noticed, uh, was that during last year 's art week, um, you know, there was, for example, everyone loves the installation on the beach, uh, behind Faina. And that obviously draws a large crowd. And so there were people trying to go to that on their bicycle. Once they got there, the, the, the, uh, the facilities were not available. And so, and so I'm trying to understand what would be the discrepancy there? Because to me, that is the perfect example of, of an event that should have these facilities. You're drawing in large crowds. And so we want to encourage you, especially if you're, if you're a local, rather than getting in your car, hey, jump on a bike, jump on a bike. Because the event now is offering you that facility. Why would it be that an event of that nature wouldn't have had to abide by this regulation? And, and I had a feeling that would come up because of previous conversations. So we had the team look at it and it looks like they're they, what they report as attendance was a thousand. That may be per day, but it doesn't really capture what they're bringing in, which is clearly more than a thousand. So that's one that we do have on our radar that we would capture in this because what they bring in over the matter of days is way more than a thousand people. And so how do we address that? So do we, are we, are we looking at attendance as the aggregate over the multiple, the multiple days of, of, of the event? That's how most events report their attendance. Usually it's in the title scope. They usually report over 10,000 in Fianna. We realize they, they're probably under reporting. So I just, uh, so in this policy, how, as this policy moves forward, how are we fixing that? It would definitely be over the course of the days. And is that currently reflected, uh, in how it's written that, that we're looking at the aggregate of the days. And so, and so if you exceed $5,000, 5,000, uh, attendees over, over, over the course of the, the many days of the, of the event, then at that point you have to abide by the policy. That's how we would write it this way. If we get a favorable recommendation today, we would take it back to commission and that's how we would write it for the memo. Um, and so I just want to go through, uh, a number of other things. Uh, a number of other recommendations that, that have been shared with me, um, making sure that the bike ballet, uh, be at the entrance of the, of the event, which, you know, seems to be common sense. Uh, apparently different events had different placements for the bicycle ballet, but I think to the extent that we want to make it easy for them to be identified, it should be somewhere near the entrance. Uh, is that being addressed at the end? And so to make the, the difference, I would imagine. So as, as an example, seafood festival, their entire event takes place on the spoil. So they did have the space closer to that untitled in scope The event takes place on the beach and they have their, their site plan that they use basically every year. So their spaces were on the spoil area as well. So if that's the will of the body that it be as close as possible, they would probably have to redesign something on the beach side. So I think it's important for the success for it to be because for it to clearly be as close as possible to wherever the public perceives to be the entrance of, of, of the event. People usually they'll drive their bicycle to wherever the entrance is. Um, the only difference is somebody would have to walk their bike longer to get to the, to the site. Uh, and I want to make sure that we are continuing to make the ballet, the bike ballet service free. Uh, what, what requirements are we placing on these events to include the availability of, uh, this, this bicycle storage infrastructure on their websites, on their social media? I know in the past, like for example, with our Deco weekends, uh, years past, they implemented this and it was promoted everywhere. You would see people because it was promoted. People knew about it and so they were going to the event on their, on their bicycle and it was being checked in. Uh, what, what requirements are we putting? So that's one item that for sure would be different from the first iteration where we will request samples of their marketing of how they are promoting this, because I think that was a failed opportunity in the first time that even if they provided the space, people probably didn't know about it. How about wayfinding? So that once people get there, like to your point, sometimes not all events have the same layout. So you have unique circumstances, uh, wayfinding. Sure. We, we can definitely include that. All of, all of this and, uh, in past discussions with event producers, specifically in the production industry council, where there's representatives from all of you sitting on One item that came up was, uh, cost and liability. So all of these items, I mean, simple sign may not cost much, but all of those would add to their, cause they're, they're not collecting on, on any parking fee or anything like that. So they're just offering this service. Um, commissioner Matos Salinas had, had made a motion. If any of these were not included, I want to make sure that we, that, that is included in this, um, before this goes back to commission, I would want to make sure that, uh, that we go together to the production industry council. Uh, and, uh, and make sure that we got, you know, whatever other feedback they may have before we go to commission. That, that would definitely be helpful. And in that discussion, we could also discuss the timeframe Last time we did it for six months, but we can have that discussion. I think, well, I, I would want to, I would want to adopt the recommendations that we have as another six month, uh, pilot in the events, you know, in the implementation of these, you know, this updated framework. In case we need to tweak anything again, we have the opportunity, uh, to, uh, to, to, to change whatever may need to be changed. I'll work with your, with your office to schedule. Great. Uh, is there a comments from the day is on the item? Members of the public wishing to speak on the item, seeing none in person, none on zoom. We can show this item adopted by acclamation and we can move forward to item number seven. Item number seven is explore the potential implementation of a blue light safety and emergency communication system along 41st street. This item was sponsored by commissioner bought commissioner bought. I love this item. Um, thank you for the love. Um, I actually happened to be driving through surf side. Uh, earlier this week or last week. And it seems that they've just installed a blue light camera. And so it might be worth not a blue light camera, a blue light security posts. It might be worth having a chat with them to see what they did. Um, if we can learn anything from them about what, how they made their selection, who their vendor is and all that stuff. Um, so this is something that we've been talking about for a while. Um, there didn't seem to be appetite among some of my colleagues, not those here, but some of my other colleagues , um, for doing this on the beach walk. But I think that, um, which I'm not giving up on yet, but, um, here on 41st street, given the population, uh, it would make a lot of sense to, to proceed with this. The one thing that I did, um, wonder about is if we needed, um, cameras at every single cross street, cause I think maybe like every other, I, I'm not sure. You guys are the police and public safety experts. I will defer to you. Um, but that was my one question. Um, and I would definitely option go for option, um, 13 in this case, not 13, option one, um, because there is power already on the street and it should be relatively easy to tie into that. But again, I'm not a public works person, so I could be wrong on that too. So why don't you educate us? Good morning, uh, Mr. Chair, commissioners and staff, Eric Garcia. Um, and I'm not a public service. Um, so your question initially, your question initially was about cameras, uh, on each intersection. So this call box project does not contemplate. I just want to, we're not talking about cameras. We're calling. Sorry. I misspeaking call box. I misspoke. Sorry. I didn't mean to give everybody. So obviously there's nine intersections that we looked at from, uh, starting at pine tree and going all the way to Alton. Um, and again, nine intersections. I don't know that necessarily we need one on every intersection. Uh, that's up to what your expectations would be. Um, there's also, uh, as was discussed in an earlier item, there are also two intercept. There's also two mid block, uh, crosswalks that might potentially also be a, an ideal location for an emergency call box. If, if you want to consider those as well. Um, so 41st street is actually going undergoing a major construction reconstruction project. Um, um, potentially this type of service can be included in that project. That's something that potentially we can discuss or can be, uh, can be looked at as part of that 41st street reconstruction project. Um, aside from that, um, just a couple of decisions that need to be made regarding power versus, uh, like you said, hard wire versus solar, you know, solar has some limitations that, you know, especially being in a tight corridor as it is. Major, let me, let me, let me ask you. Does the department, uh, feel that there is a, a benefit to the community with the installation of, of the proposed blue light, uh, communication system. So we're never going to say no to something that potentially can incrementally increase safety. Um, so we're, we're going to support. The decision of the, of the commission of the committee and the commission, whatever that would be. So through the chair for me. Um, I've spoken at length with chief Jones about this. And he is very supportive. Um, my, my challenge to you all would be taking a look at these. Um, I think it's nine intersections and let's identify five where it makes most sense. And having lived in this neighborhood for so many years, I would suggest that, um, Sheridan Avenue and pine tree is, um, uh, you know, kind of around The Walgreens there gets all kinds of shady folks, um, wandering in often without pants because they have been released from Mount Sinai and they're in their hospital gowns and holding their plastic bag. And my heart goes out to them cause that's not a way that anybody should be released back out of the hospital. But that is a, that's a thing. Um, so that, that Walgreens situation and where the CVS is. And so I would look to you for some guidance to tell us where, um, where the most likely areas would be. Um, I remember that there was always a drama with the Burger King that was there. Um, and kids running back and forth across traffic when they're not supposed to be. I know that's a different issue than, but like, let's put some, um, I think that's what's the, let's not just go blanketing the entire street. I don't think it warrants that. Um, you know, the other thing about pine tree is that that is a nexus of people who observe, observe the Sabbath and would not be walking with their phones. Um, same thing with on the other end, um, whether it's Garden Ave or Jefferson, but somewhere in there, maybe Meridian, same thing where you have families wandering after dinner for a lovely stroll on Friday night or Saturday. Um, so let's, let's you guys, I mean, Chris Mitchell's out there all the time. So let's get Chris giving us his input, um, on where the best places would be. And let's start off with five and see how they work. I mean, ideally we don't need more than five. Um, and, and, and I just want to jump in because I, I agree with everything that you have said, you know, why I believe this is, this is a good additions because, you know, unlike any other part of the city, we have a high concentration of individuals in this area of the city who are walking around without their cell phone. Um, and God forbid they have an emergency communicating with, with, uh, with, with police and law enforcement then becomes, uh, challenging. And so, and so I, I agree with, with commissioner bots suggestion for the police department to identify strategically identify, you know, let's not just say every intersection for the sake of saying no, but strategically identify, which are those, those best locations where this can be placed. Um, that is that, that, that can better enhance the safety of, of the residents and the pedestrians in that, in that area. So I'm happy to support this item. Um, and with, with the direction to, to staff for when it goes back to the full city commission for it to go back, um , to the full city commission. Um, to go back, uh, with an identification of those locations in, um, that, that the police department, uh, has identified to be the, uh, the most critical. And I would, I would also say, you know, in addition to Chris Mitchell, who is out there all the time, our neighborhood resource officers, very familiar with the needs of that, of that area. Uh, Haase is very familiar with the, with, with a unique, uh, character and, and the needs of the people. And, and the needs of the, of the area there. So I'd encourage that, uh, that, that Haase be, be a part of, of, of that conversation. Um, the timeline for, for CIP to be able to include this as part of our 41st street, uh, capital improvements project. The 41st street project will be advertising under the ITB in the next weeks, if not days. Um, but what we can do is we can add, uh, an ad alternate with a brief description on what the potential could be. And that way we can get to pricing in the process. Great. So, yes. Um, if you could also just reach out to Surfside, um, and just learn what they've experienced and who they're using and why they've made that decision. And before it comes to commission, I'd like to be briefed on what their locations are, um, and why they were chosen, please. The, the challenge and implementation, as you all know, is DOT permitting. It's their right of way. So they're going to have to approve locations. But if, if, if they're included as part of wayfinding and other infrastructure, that's right. It makes it easier. You know, and, uh, and I'd be remiss to imagine we have captain Sanchez here, uh, who, who is the captain of the, of the area. So I think we have all other right people available to help a strategic, uh, decision. Uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's a luxury and an amenity. It is, but it's also a very unique area of our city. Uh, and I, and I think if the technology is there to enhance the safety of our residents, uh, in a very unique, uh, setting, then we should be exploring it. So thank you, commissioner Bob. Commissioner Mattel Salinas. No. Are there members of the public wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none in zoom, none in person. Uh, we can move forward to item number eight. Item number eight is discussed. Take action regarding the blocking of flooded portions of the outermost lanes on Alton road from 43rd street to 63rd Drink flooding events to prevent homes from being swamped by vehicles driving through flooded portions. This item was sponsored by commissioner. Commissioner bought. You're welcome to introduce your item. Um, well, we talked about it a little bit, um, tangentially earlier today. This is an item that, um, I'm bringing because it's been an issue that is getting increasingly dramatic over the last number of years. Um, I've witnessed it in some form. I think every year I've lived here 23 years, but it has gotten exponentially worse, um, over the last five or 10 years, but certainly in the last five. And now that I'm in a position to hear residents concerns, um, more than anecdotally, I've heard from so many residents up and down Alton road who are, um, you know, somebody just had just refinished the floors of their home. Mm-hm. And they were flooded. Somebody had literally saved up for years to buy himself his dream car, took possession of it on Friday, a vintage something or other. And on, on Saturday it was totaled. And, you know, I know these are first world problems, right ? This isn't like, you know, we're, we're being swept away and our children are being lost. But these are people who've worked very hard to be able to feel safe and secure in their home that their home will not be damaged through weather. And we, we live in a first world and we should be able to fix this. And we are working on infrastructure projects that will help mitigate this. But even if we fund them yesterday, it will take years before they actually effectuate change. So what can we do in the interim, um, that will help people , um, live in homes that are not inundated with, with flooding? Um, I, one friend literally had to put his dog on his kayak to take him out to go to the bathroom because they couldn't get out of their home. Um, I know one of our colleagues on, on the commission, the first year we were elected was out catching fish in people 's front yards and putting them back into the waterways. Um, like the stories are insane. And so it's not good enough to say we can't do it. And I know there, there are impediments to doing it one way or another way, but we've got to find a way while we are working on the infrastructure to slow the roll literally and figuratively. It is illegal. My understanding is that it is illegal to go over a certain speed when there is flood water. So we need to figure out enforcement. We need to figure out, can we stage vehicles? And I know FDOT is terribly concerned about what happens in an emergency, but I can't do that. Nobody is speeding through to get off the island during a flood. Like we're all hunkering down trying to keep ourselves dry. So we've got to cut through the various narratives and figure out what we can do. So this is the beginning of the conversation. I want to put this out here for everybody. This is the beginning of the conversation. This is not the entirety of the conversation. So with that, I will turn it over to the experts in the room. Good morning again, commissioners. So as you mentioned, just kind of gives a little more of that context, right? We do have the existing tool of the state law that says vehicles must slow down and not create wakes in the event of flooding. But enforcement of that would be a challenge. I wanted to mention you mentioned. Before you, I'm sorry. Ann, I'm not the expert on that. I know. So let's have this as a conversation as opposed to a presentation per se because I think things get better and more productive that way. If I can, let me allow Captain Sanchez to occupy that podium and we'll obviously recognize you because You're going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. Good morning to everyone. And thank you for jumping the gun and not shooting the gun. I won't do that. That's not my jam. That's your jam. Predicting when a weather event would occur is quite a challenge. The professionals don't get it right. We do our best to anticipate. No, but we do know, like the city knows when we're hunk ering down. Like the sandbags go out, the resident alert goes out. So in a major flooding event, such as post a hurricane or a major storm that we are expecting, we have closed down streets for downed power lines, downed trees. Situations that would stall vehicles, which would then create a public safety hazard, which prevents emergency vehicles to then be able to traverse. And prior to that, for an unforeseen weather event where we get weather that rolls in and we do get flooding, it is very difficult to implement and to staff a full lane closure for an extended period of time or for an extended distance. But what if it's not a lane closure and it's the equivalent of a traffic thing? The motor, I mean, I wouldn't suggest the motor men because they're on my motorcycles. That sounds really unsafe. But like at certain points along Alton Road, you have officers out there like telling people, directing traffic. Like you cannot go 30, 40 miles an hour on Alton Road. You have to go 15 because of the conditions. But let me ask this. Let me, because not all rain events are the same. Correct. And we're talking about very specific type of rain events that generate a certain amount of volume of rain. Or it's, because the cars are, no, the cars are not getting stalled with every rain event. We're getting cars stalled during the larger rain, rain events. They actually usually happen around June, July, August. And I know that because in August when we're away on vacation, we're getting phone calls. And people, it's unfortunate, their cars literally just stuck. And you have elderly people. We, one year we had elderly people trapped, trapped in a, in a car on, on Alton, on Alton Road. And so, and so I'm just wondering, um, Madam Engineer, do we know the category, the category of these, of these weather events that generally cause this type of flooding? Or is that something that our Department of Emergency Management, uh, might have access to? Yeah, they might, they may know that number better than me. I don't know what it is. I mean, it's gonna, it can be, it's a frequency issue. It's also a duration issue. So you could get a long, lengthy storm that could be destructive, right? And happens over the course of extended period of time. But you can also get those quick hit, frequent storms, just the- A flash flood. The intense storm. And that could lead to, uh, conditions as well, so. Because what would be, what, what might be helpful to know is, okay, typically we see this type of rain, uh, rain accumulation and flooding and vehicles getting installed in the, in the rain with this type of weather event. Uh, usually these can be predicted and usually I know our Department of Environmental, uh, our Department of Emergency Management tracks these. And sometimes at times we'll get notifications about it. And perhaps when we get those notifications, what might be prudent is, is to send out a text alert, to send out an email alert, and maybe even social media. And just alerting individuals, avoid out on road. Uh, once we know that that type of rain event is, is coming , it's not, it's not closing the lane. Because I also think, you know, you need to deploy police resources during those, those rain events to different places. And so you might not be able to commit to keep a police resource there. But the communication, if people know at that point that with this type of weather event, to expect the level flooding that could cause their car to get stuck, then perhaps they will seek an alternate route. So, if I, if I might jump in on this also, um, I think it's not even just about the cars getting stuck. I mean, that's bad enough. And, you know, I always joke that I lived in Boston and had a convertible. The home's getting destroyed. That I had a convertible in Boston, but I have an SUV in Florida because I, you know, I, I don't want to risk getting stuck in a, in a flood. And it happens all the time with an SUV. You don't have to, but the converse flip, flip side of that is that, um, people who are in SUVs are able to navigate the roads and drive the normal speed limit. And that's the issue, right? So it's, I, I think education and awareness is, is good and important. I'm always a big fan of that. I think it also needs to be explained that it doesn't matter if your car can get through. It is illegal to go above a certain speed limit. And I think, uh, uh, you know, you're the police department PSAs are off the chart right now. They're so good. And so we should do one about this and deploy it every time that, you know, we're predicting the rain to remind people that not only are you being kind of a jerk as a neighbor and a community member, but you're also running the risk of getting caught and getting a pretty nasty time. traffic ticket. So I think that's all very good. I would like to see, and I'm not talking about closing a lane, but I would like to see how we could, um, implement when we know a certain weather event is coming. Cause we do get enough notice. Um, most, not all the time, but mostly, um, that we could implement an extra couple of traffic details along the altar road corridor. Um, not at the, not to take away from life safety stuff that's going on with around the rest of the city. But if we get like, we get 48 hours in advance, um, DEM census things saying we're anticipating this sandbags. This is going to be closed, whatever. Then we can say, all right, we're going to need a couple of X or folks working a couple X or hours. How are you guys work your magic? I know it's not that simple. I'm not being an idiot and I'm not being, um, cavalier about the fact that people also want to be home taking care of their own families. But I do think it's a thing that we need to try to investigate because if this were only once or twice, if this had happened, that'd be like, okay, well, that really stinks. And I'm sorry, but it's now every one of these, not everyone, but multiple events every year. And that is no longer just something we can say so sorry for you. Um, Lori's gone now, but she was here. I think she's replaced her floors multiple times and she lives on in a house that is a little bit elevated and a naturally occurring berm. And it's up on, um, up some steps. So it's not that her house is getting flooded. Her house is getting swamped by, um, Her house did get flooded and Lori unfortunately had to leave, but her house. No, but my, but my point is that it's, it's not that the waters are rising that high naturally. It's that the water is pushed up that high by cars. So that, that's what I'm saying. The distinction because she's up pretty high. Um, so, um, I would also like, um, to see if we can do a little, um, analysis of cross-referencing, let's say the last five years of the DEM warnings on weather events where the city gets mobilized and the, um, reports of flooding from Alton Road so that we can get a better understanding of when does it happen? How often does it happen? Um, are there any commonalities that we can identify to trigger a particular response in addition to whatever else we might be doing? Yeah. And, and I, and I want to put it for, for, for the record, this is something we're going to be facing, uh, at least for the, for the next five to, you know, 11, five to 11 years. Does it because you have the 2031, uh, you have the FDOT, uh, project that's going to be racing roads and working on drainage and stormwater issues starting 2031. That's on the Southern part of this corridor along, uh, along 43rd street to 48th street. Uh, they don't get all the way up to the Northern end of 57 th street, uh, and Allison road till 2037. Uh, so, so, you know, there are infrastructure improvements on, on the works, but in the interval. So there is light at the end of the, of the tunnel. Uh, maybe not as quick as one would hope, but, you know, there are solutions in, in the way, but in the, in the meantime, uh, we do need, uh, these, uh, these, these temporary solutions. Myra, you've been patiently waiting, uh, to chime in and then I'm going to recognize, uh, Tricia. Thank you, commissioners. So your question as to how often this flooding into the homes occur, um, it doesn't just occur when we have the 200 year storm or a hurricane or the warning of a hurricane. It happens also as, um, was said when there is a rainfall that happens very quickly or happens over a period of days. A couple of weeks ago, we had a rainfall. Some of the homes were flooded and it's not just caused because the storm sewers cannot take in all that water. We are talking about the original storm sewers from 1926 or something and they're clogged inside. So water doesn't really flow through as easily and it cannot be stored, um, in those storm sewer, um, pipes. But it happens, um, all the time. And it happens not just because, um, it's a, a big rainfall It happens because the vehicles going by Alton on the outer lane and on the innermost lane are going fast enough that it causes a wake. And that wake pushes the water into the homes. As an example, Commissioner Fernandez, you were there in the 200 year storm, which was a couple years ago. That's the only time I have seen in 45 years cars stalled and left abandoned on the road where even the tow companies could not move them out. So the issue here is not the cars being stalled. Um, the issue is the water being pushed onto the homes inside the homes from just a simple rainfall. And the, and the, and the reason Maida, I, I mentioned the cars stalled. It's because the water is going into, into the homes that's affecting you, but you need to put it, you need to message it in, in a way that captures the attention of the driver. You want the driver to, to disengage in a certain activity while they need to know, well, just avoid that area. Don't even go there. Um, thank you. That would be very helpful. And that's, and that's where, that, that's where I would love to see, you know, the overall, overlap of, of, of the data. Which were those storms where we had the worst flooding, where the homes were getting affected the most when we were having the cars stalled? What type of weather event was that? So that then, so that then we can push out then the text messages, the emails, the social media, everything, uh, telling people, okay. You know, you can't go there. In addition to the enhanced, uh, traffic, uh, enforcement on speed and all that. But I think we need to correlate, okay, this big weather event, what was it? So that when we see it coming again in the future, we can proactively co-communicate and not just tell cars to go slow. No, discourage the cars from going, from, from entering that area during that type of storm. And that's, I think it's going to be, yield the best results while we wait in the interval for the FDOT improvements, uh, which are coming. And that is, that is good news. They, they are coming. Um, but in the meantime, I think we could work with this. People are having to leave their homes for a month while mold remediation, water removal is being done. Dry walls are removed and replaced and cars are emptied of 50 gallons of water from one of my son's cars. The other one also had the same thing. Horrible. And not for nothing, but all of that causes damage to our environment, right? Like you don't want stuff coming through your car into our bay, basically. It's bad enough that we have streets that have cars driving on them and with that stormwater runoff going into the bay. So, um, I, I know that everybody is stretched super tight because of FIFA. I got that. And we're asking for people to do some more work to correlate data. Um, we are entering into our summer rain season. I don't want to break anybody, but if there's any way that we could get the, the correlation between the storm information and the, the reports of flooding going back at a minimum three years, it'd be better for five years and come back to the commission with a plan of how we could work with DEM, get the, you know, have the data to illustrate and, and have some kind of a staffing protocol that can be activated , um, and we're trying to enhance having officers on Alton Road to, to manage traffic effectively. If people are speeding, ticket them because it's, it's illegal and we have that tool. So they're, they're pretty low hurdle, um, improvements. And I would love for them to come to the June meeting if it 's possible, knowing that you guys are all already beside yourselves. So that we don't lose another two months. And then we are in recess in August. And, you know, then all of a sudden the rain season is mostly over and we haven't been able to effectively change. Does June commission me? If it's possible. I, I, I leave that up to, I, I don't know if they'll be able to do that, but. That's why I'm, that's why I want to have this commission. Commission, with all due respect, this issue has been before this city since, for the past 20 years. But Myra, I just got here, so. And I understand, I know you, you all just got here basically, but, um, these homes are being affected. There are people that are elderly and people that are challenged and cannot get out of their homes. And that is why I'm asking, that is specifically why I'm asking my friends and colleagues in different departments to exert themselves even harder than we are already asking them to for, during FIFA. If they can carve out a handful of hours or if they've got interns in their departments to do some of this research and then put together a preliminary staffing plan. It doesn't have to be ironclad, but like, yes, we can do it And here's kind of how we'll do it so that we can have this conversation in June. And if you need to massage it and figure it out from there, that's not an issue, but I don't want to lose another six weeks. And, and, and, you know, to add to build upon that, the communication plan, I believe that the other communication aspect of it, staffing is great. Once the vehicles are there. Uh, and I think a lot of times with staffing, you might not always be able to rely on the staffing being there because sometimes you need to move your resources. No, I understand. But, but communicating and trying to discourage the behavior of the people going there. I think, I think it'll be very helpful. I, we need to move to one final item before we adjourn today, but Trisha has been patiently waiting. Uh, Trisha, uh, welcome. Trisha. Um, first of all, I would like to say, I appreciate the education and awareness. I think that that is a, a, a good, uh, next step. Um, a couple of things though, you know, we talked about how fun it is to drive your Lamborghini down Alton road and it's fun because it's fast. Well, um, as, um, Ms. Bott pointed out, the SUVs are fun too. The people bring their big vehicles, you know, the Teslas and the, the G wagons and all these vehicles that are made to go through that type of water. And they think it's fun and it's fun to go fast. Um, so that's part of the problem. And I do think education might help, but frankly, people don't follow the rules very much anymore, as we have found with the speeding on Alton road. Um, anyone that lives on the golf course is getting flooded both from the back and the front. The, the waters are raging through in an, any type of water event. They're raging through from the golf course to Alton road. So they're going between our houses to Alton road. Um, this, this creates that the water's coming from both ways and the wakes are in just what was saying, damaging cars. I had flooding for the first time ever in my home. Um, and the continuation of this is horrible. It's not just it's, it's also King tide activated because that major event where everyone was stuck for hours on Al ton road, including me was. It didn't recede until the tide went down. And so it's also is triggered by the tide. So that's something else you're going to have to look like, look at and take into, um, effect with it. Um, from a standpoint of, if you know that the ground has been saturated already. Well, of course, it's going to be worse. If you put up, you can use those new electronic signs to start to educate the people as well. I would suggest that changing that Fisher Park light to when there is a, uh, an event like this to so that it is going off so that it slows the people down might be helpful as well. Um, you know, we would appreciate anything that you can do just as also an aside the stormwater or the sewer drain that runs along. Um, the golf course side. You guys are doing a great job of, um, getting everything pumped out. I see the, the vehicles all over town, pumping out the, uh, sewers and storm drains around the city, but everybody forgets about the golf course drains because they're hard to get to the manhole access is you have to go down. One of the swales at like 52nd street is where you have to go and you have to go on grass and you can't do it when it 's it, when the grass is wet. So if it's not done when the grass is dry, we're out of luck. Um, you know, all of these things and, and, you know, you say 19 or 2037, my goodness, I, I, I've been waiting for this for 30 years already. So it's just discouraging. Thank you, Tricia. And you have our commitment that we're, that we're all committed through commissioner bots leadership, uh, to, to, to show, uh, and yield improvements, uh, for you. Uh, so with that, uh, commissioner, uh, there's, you made a motion to try to get this to the June meeting. I can't make motion. You can't make a motion. So your request is to try to bring this back to the June meeting. And I would just say also one of the things that we should be mindful of is that every time this happens, um, and a car gets totaled, um, that raises that residence premium on the cars to the point where they may not be able to get car insurance. And the same thing with home insurance claims. So it's not just that it's an inconvenience because it's a huge inconvenience, but it also, I mean, it's going to eventually affect where people can afford to live. So again, I know I'm, I'm being a little bit exigent on this, pushing you guys to come back in June, but I want to get this going. Cause I know it's going to take time once we come back in June to, to tweak and get it all up and running, but I'll be here to do anything I can to help you guys come back for June. And, uh, and, and also I just, and I want us to, you know, think outside the box again, I don't want us to overly rely , uh, with on police on this, on this specific issue. Uh, you know, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want us to say, you know, and prescribe, you know, police have to be stationed at, at these locations. Uh, just because during these situations, you have a lot of emergencies that are happening. You have a lot of, you know, public safety situations. So I also want to give police some flexibility and perhaps they can give us some guidance as to how they feel. This can probably be, be handled together with our fire departments. And so with that, uh, we can show this unanimously, uh, adopted and hopefully we'll have something for, for the June meeting. Karen, you had something to stay. I'm looking at our, Mr. Chair. I just want to clarify with you're talking about bringing it to next Wednesday's commission. Um, Mr. Bot. Is there any way we can with a supplemental? I mean, I think we can, we'll, we'll, we'll do our best. At least an update. An update with the analysis. I was going to say, yeah. I think the biggest challenge would be just doing the administrative documentation and getting it through. But, um, I think that as long as we have the right data, you know, it's a matter of getting it grafted, grafted and, and, and see what the trend looks like. And you know, that, that, that's the, that's the important task you want to hear about. And we can do it as a, maybe a discuss and take action or something. But like, I want the conversation to start in a commission meeting so that we're like, okay, we don't have the full details on X, but on A, B and C, we can press play and go. So that's what I'm trying to, to get us to. And I think, Kara, I, I think, I think what you're seeing, and David, you're seeing all of us realize this is a very last minute request for next week's meeting from, from this committee. So we, I think we'll be understanding, uh, if you can't get us the most thorough information, but at least we can get the ball. It's a discussion. Uh, we can, we can show this item closed. Uh, and we're now going to item number 10. Item number 10 is discussed, adding a resident empowerment and accountability on development dashboard, read dashboard on the city website to include information on both proposed and improved developments projects in Miami beach. As I said, most sponsored by vice mayor Dominguez and co-sp onsored by commissioner. I like to move items. So last year, um, it became evident that I, that more transparency was needed and an easier way for residents to find items, um, on our website in one location, uh, would serve everyone well. And I had many meetings with, uh, the planning department, Tom Mooney and it and the clerk's office on how we can get this done. And I appreciate all of the work that went into this and getting this completed. Um, so now we have a read, uh, dashboard, uh, which is resident empowerment and accountability on development. Um, one thing I will, uh, request, um, and I'm just going to pull up my notes right now. Um, let's see here. Because it has all of the columns that, um, um, I've been looking for. So development orders with, uh, the development agreements. If, uh, applicable, uh, naming and column, uh, with the project information. It's more user friendly right now. The name of the applicant, the company, uh, summary of the project, the direct link to the application that wanted, somebody wanted to do a deep dive. Um, let's see here. I'd also like to add pending live local applications on the dashboard. So the code already requires notice to go to neighbors once a project is approved. And the notice is provided to neighbors within 375 feet, as well as neighborhood associations. But for pending applications that are not yet approved, maybe we can have them listed and included in the status of a project. Um, I think that would be helpful to residents as well, because as of late, I have been getting a lot of calls from neighborhood associations asking about live local, uh, pending and, um, and, um, and I think that would allow for more transparency And to build on that, if I might just, um, pending applications slash litigation. Because I think there are eight pending applications that are currently being litigated. Um, and I'll run that by the city attorney's office, um, later to see if, unless Rob has a quick answer on it, um, if we need to advertise litigated items. Um, we would have to discuss that. Let's discuss that after. We, yeah, we can definitely include a, um, column for pending live local. And you'll make that part of the recommendation as part of this motion. Yeah, that would be amazing. We don't need to bring this item back. We can meet offline. Um, I just wanted this item discussed at neighborhoods that , uh, residents that really follow our commission meetings, um, closely know that we do have something available in my next newsletter. I'll include it so that residents know. And we can close out the item, um, as long as my colleagues don't have any other additions, suggestions, or questions. I think, um, Vice Mayor Dominguez, I think this is one of these transparency elements that, uh, that our public deserves, uh, and you've prioritized that. I know, Commissioner, about when, when you were on the planning board and we were both serving on the planning board, you know, we would talk a lot about, you know, how great it would be if a platform like this existed where you could see, um, not just what's being built in our city, those development agreements, um, that, that the city was, was a party to, you know, what is being approved, what are the public benefits? Uh, it's a matter of transparency and it also helps the community better understand what is being projected. You know, a lot of times we only think about those projects that are currently being discussed. And those projects that are actively under construction. But then there's that period of time between a project being approved and a project breaking ground where you still have an active development agreement And we are looking at the big picture of the city. And when you're considering independent zoning applications or independent, uh, zoning legislation, you do want to consider, you do want to consider what are those previously approved development agreements that are going to be intertwined and part of that puzzle piece. So, uh, vice mayor Dominguez, uh, this goes to the heart of transparent, uh, urban planning. And you've prioritized it, uh, for, for, for a while now, since last year, you've been working hard on this. And, uh, and I think our community is going to be better served by this, uh, commissioner bot. Um, I also want to, I echo everything you said. I love this item. Um, commissioner Dominguez vice mayor, sorry. Vice mayor Dominguez. Laura, my fave. Love calling you Laura. Um, I also want to recognize that the late great Mark Samu elson was, um, the president of MBU when residents' right to know was born and brought up to the commission and adopted this legislation and then tweaked over the many years to make it as robust as, as it is now. Following in those footsteps, Herb Frank, also the late great Herb Frank, who was one of the founding members of Miami Beach United, um, really championed this idea. And it was, it was a real mission for him to try to get this kind of a, um, very resident friendly dashboard, um, built and, and used. And I'm sorry that neither Mark nor Herb are here to see the, the product of Laura's labors. And, um, it's a labor of love. And, um, um, this is why MBU is an important organization, has been an important organization and will continue to be because it advocates for residents to understand how to advocate for themselves at city hall. So between residents right to know which is enshrined and how we do business now and this dashboard, which, um, um, is, is so important and all the resident connect stuff that came out of all the residents right to know, um, advocacy. It's, you know, it's, it, it's a, it's a thing that we should all take stock and be proud of and take a moment to reflect. Cause it's not every city that makes itself available to residents to find out what's going on. Wonderful. Um, seeing, uh, no other comments, uh, from, from, from the days by mayor vice mayor Dominguez. Thank you again for your leadership on this. I think it's going to help the entire community just be better engaged and better informed as we talk about the planning of the future of Miami beach. With that, uh, is there any other business for the good of the order? No. We can show this meeting adjourned. Thank you everyone. everyone.