CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION MEETING December 9… Review-law… · Katherine Richards ... The law firm, as you know from the resume, ... Charter Review Commission Meeting December 9,

Charter Review Commission Meeting December 9, 2015 LG/NC 1

CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION MEETING

December 9, 2015 MEMBERS Anil Apana PRESENT: Cynthia Busch

Larry Davis David DiPietro H. Collins Forman, Jr. Roslyn Greenberg Cynthia Guerra Suzanne Gunzburger Jose Izquierdo James Gray Kane Marilyn Leto Suzette A. Maylor Thomas McDonald Monica Navarro Carlos J. Reyes Katherine Richards Grant Smith Burnadette Norris-Weeks

MEMBERS Lori Moseley ABSENT: ALSO Joni Armstrong Coffey, County Attorney PRESENT: Drew Meyers, County Attorney’s Office

Mark Journey, County Attorney’s Office Monica Cepero, Assistant County Administrator Edward Labrador, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Professional Standards Daphnee A. Sainvil, State Legislative Coordinator, Intergovernmental Affairs and Professional Standards Bernie Parness Diana Esposito Marilyn Leto Carlos Reyes Mary Lou Tighe Lisa Aronson Carlos A. Verney, Jr. Sam Goren, Esquire, Goren Cherof Doody & Ezrol, PA David Tolces, Esquire, Goren Cherof Doody & Ezrol, PA Jacob Horowitz, Esquire, Goren Cherof Doody & Ezrol, PA Michael Cirullo, Esquire, Goren Cherof Doody & Ezrol, PA


Robert L. Nabors, Esquire, Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson PA Edward A. Dion, Esquire, Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson PA Regine Monestine, Esquire Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel Nancy Cavender, The Laws Group

A meeting of the Broward County Charter Review Commission was held at Broward County Main Library, 8th Floor Boardroom, 100 South Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 at 1:30 p.m. (The following is a near-verbatim transcript of the meeting.) MR. MCDONALD: I call to order the meeting of the Charter Review Commission. I’d like to call the roll call, please. MR. LABRADOR: Okay. Cynthia Busch. MS. BUSCH: Here. MR. LABRADOR: James Kane. MR. DAVIS: Kane. MR. LABRADOR: Yes. MR. DAVIS: Kane? MR. LABRADOR: Yes. MR. DAVIS: Not here. MR. LABRADOR: Okay. Roslyn Greenberg. MS. GREENBERG: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Katherine Richards. MS. RICHARDS: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Marilyn Leto. MS. LETO: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Tom McDonald.


MR. MCDONALD: Here. MR. LABRADOR: David DiPietro. Cynthia Guerra. MS. GUERRA: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Okay. Monica Navarro. MS. NAVARRO: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Carlos Reyes. Larry Davis. MR. DAVIS: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Suzanne Gunzburger. MS. GUNZBURGER: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Mr. Forman. MR. FORMAN: Present. MR. LABRADOR: Okay. Grant Smith. MR. SMITH: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Anil Apana. MR. APANA: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Lori Moseley. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I heard Lori’s not coming. MR. LABRADOR: Suzette Maylor. MS. MAYLOR: Here. MR. LABRADOR: Burnadette Norris-Weeks. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Here. MR. LABRADOR: And Jose Izquierdo. MR. IZQUIERDO: Here.


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hey, he sneaked in. MR. LABRADOR: Okay. A quorum is present. MR. MCDONALD: We have a quorum. Our first item on the agenda today was our Legal Counsel Discussion. I’d like to call on Grant Smith. You’re the chair of that. Tell us the result of your short list. MR. SMITH: We had a meeting and, at the meeting, we had a -- an open discussion about all the firms. We did not rank our -- the ones we are putting forth. We merely brought forth four firms, in no particular order, to present today. At the meeting were myself, Burnadette Norris-Weeks, Larry Davis, and Marilyn Leto. And I think there were a couple of firms in attendance at the meeting. We discussed the various firms and what we were looking for in firms, and came with, in no particular order -- actually, just the order that’s here, which is alphabetical. It was the Goren firm, the Nabors firm, the Monestine firm, and the Weiss firm. And also in consideration was the County Attorney’s Office. As everybody around the table probably knows, yesterday we received an email that the Weiss firm had withdrawn from consideration, and this morning we got a letter from the County Attorney’s Office that they have withdrawn from consideration, as well. So today we have, again, the Goren firm, the Nabors firm, and the Monestine firm who are here to present to the broader group, and then I suspect we will have a discussion, and then pick counsel. MR. MCDONALD: And did you -- did you let them know how many minutes they have? MR. SMITH: We did. I believe County Administration let them know that they will have 15 minutes to present. And they may or may not need all 15 minutes. And then we reserve time to answer questions -- ask questions, get questions answered, and then we would choose, as a Commission. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. The -- at this time, I’d ask everybody to turn their cell phone to silent. MR. KANE: I tried to turn it off. I can’t figure out how to do it. That’s what I was doing. MS. GUNZBURGER: You wanted us to know you were here, James. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That was very timely. MR. SMITH: And you want to rewrite the Charter.


MR. MCDONALD: Did you have anything to add, Joni? MS. ARMSTRONG COFFEY: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did want to thank the committee for all the work that they put into this. It was an impressive list of firms that applied. When I saw the firms that the committee advanced, I saw that you’re going to be well covered. You don’t need us. We will serve as a resource. I told them at the time that we didn’t want to compete with these private firms. It was really a choice between, you know, public sector counsel and whether you wanted a private firm. And we’re very satisfied that any of them -- we didn’t learn until later that another firm had withdrawn, but I wish -- MR. MCDONALD: Would you like to reconsider your -- MS. ARMSTRONG COFFEY: No, no, I think you -- you’re still well equipped. MR. MCDONALD: All right. MS. ARMSTRONG COFFEY: So thank you for the opportunity to assist in getting these nominations before you. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. I guess at this time, we’ll start the interview process. I have put three numbers -- or names in a hat, and we’ll draw them in order. Everyone knows this is a sunshine meeting, so people can sit through the meeting. Nabors -- MR. NABORS: Would you all rather us stay? MR. MCDONALD: I cannot ask you that. It’s a violation of the sunshine to ask you to leave. MS. GUNZBURGER: People can voluntarily leave, but we may never -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They all know the right answer. MS. GUNZBURGER: -- ever request it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: I -- I was sued, and Judge Grossman ruled against me in 1992. Who are the three firms? MR. FORMAN: Goren, Monestone -- Monestine -- MR. MCDONALD: Monestine? MR. FORMAN: Yeah, Monestine.


MR. MCDONALD: Nabors. MS. GUNZBURGER: Is Monestine here? MR. MCDONALD: Is Ms. Monestine here? MS. MONESTINE: We’re leaving. MR. MCDONALD: Is it Mr. or Ms.? MS. MONESTINE: Ms. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. FORMAN: Tom, will you pick a number there? MR. MCDONALD: The first one will be -- the first one will be Goren. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Goren. MR. MCDONALD: Goren, yeah. Borman (Phonetic) was my attorney that got disbarred. Nabors is second. MR. DAVIS: Eddy, did you get everybody here? MR. LABRADOR: Yeah. MR. DAVIS: Jim and (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. DAVIS: We still have a quorum? MR. LABRADOR: Yes. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did you think it would change if we added people? MR. MCDONALD: Where -- give them somewhere to stand. You want to start, Sam? Where would you like to stand? MR. GOREN: Where would you like us to be? MR. MCDONALD: Probably right there.


MR. DAVIS: Sam, I’d ask you to sit up front so we can (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. DAVIS: Yeah. MS. GUNZBURGER: Because he’ll be at someone’s back. MS. LETO: Just move off to the side. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, Tom. MS. LETO: Sorry, Tom, I wasn’t bossing you around, but I kind of was. MR. MCDONALD: We’re giving them -- is it 15 minutes? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. (Inaudible.) MS. GUNZBURGER: Who’s going to be the timer? MR. DAVIS: And how are we doing -- is that going to be -- I don’t want to cut into the 15 minutes. Is that going to include -- 15 minutes going to include questioning, too, or how are we going to do it? MR. FORMAN: However the -- however they want to do it, I would suggest. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I’ll defer to -- MR. GRANT: I believe we said everyone would have 15 minutes. MS. GUNZBURGER: How would the committee (inaudible). MR. GRANT: The committee left it at 15 minutes for the -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Presentation? MR. GRANT: -- for the presentation. MR. MCDONALD: Then we’ll have questions. That’ll be following. MS. GUNZBURGER: And I think -- can we say that the questions will be no longer than the presentation?


MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. MS. GUNZBURGER: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: Go ahead. MR. GOREN: Good afternoon. My name is Sam Goren. I am a partner with the law firm of Goren Cherof Doody and Ezrol. It is my pleasure to be with you this afternoon. To my left is all of my law partners, some of them, David Tolces, Mike Cirullo, Jacob Horowitz, all of whom have been working with charter government for the past number of years. It’s a privilege and honor to be with you this afternoon. Thank you very much for the short listing and for the opportunity to actually present to you. I’ve been preparing for some number of days, thinking about what it is -- or how best to present who we are to you, but I think it’s best to look at who we are. I’m a lawyer this year for 41 years. Much of our invested time has been with local government and charter government and public entities. We sort of toil in the fields of local government practice. The law firm, as you know from the resume, we represent almost a dozen municipalities in both Palm Beach County and Broward. I personally represent three in Broward County. We also represent a number of special taxing districts and government agencies, all of whom are governed by the sunshine law, the ethics of the Florida Bar, ethics of Chapter 112 and other aspects of both Chapter 112 and Chapter 119 public records as well. We also have had the pleasure over the past number of years to be counsel for the Charter Review Commissions, several of them. In 2000-2002, as well as 2006-2008, both of which were quite challenging and quite an -- quite a unique experience for me as a lawyer during my own career. I’ve lived in this town for almost 40 years. My children were born and raised here. The Charter is a very important document to me, but not just because it’s a potential opportunity for my law firm and for myself, but it’s something which actually means something to me as a citizen and resident of Broward County. The work that you do here is very important. This is not a passing fancy where you simply take on an assignment to work on this document. It is the Bible. It’s the Constitution of Broward County. Having been a former Assistant County Attorney back in 1976, it was just several years after the Charter was approved by the voters of Broward County, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I also served as counsel to the 1976 Charter Commission when working for Broward County back then in the day. The uniqueness of charter government is something which I know you have all signed on for to review. There are topics and subject matters that have been reviewed by your predecessors which are both important, they can be controversial, they can be also very meaningful and very important for all of us in this room, and for our families, as well. We have that experience.


We’ve also had the experience of working with the Broward League of Cities. We’re pro bono general counsel to the Broward League of Cities, and we represent them in a very significant way and follow things that they do. We’ve also looked at the issues, as has occurred in the past, with the avoidance of conflicts and guarding ourselves against any potential for conflicts. Having said that, there have been several occasions in recent years where there were issues that might have appeared to be a conflict, and, if there is such an issue, then we will very carefully look at the Florida Bar rules that govern how we operate, how we function, and what we do as lawyers. There were several instances back in 2006-2008. There was an issue regarding the Fire/Rescue issue that were then very important to Broward County, particularly in connection with the issue of closest unit response and infrastructure communications information. At that time, the Charter Board made the correct decision. We took a -- took a back step and outside counsel were engaged for that express purpose. When the -- there were several instances when that actually occurred, but we’re also very conscious of that. Our law firm doesn’t sue government, just for your information. We don’t -- we don’t sue local government. There is one exception. I represent the City of Pembroke Pines. We’re currently in a Chapter 164 proceeding with an adjoining city. Chapter 164 is a Statute in Florida which says that governments shouldn’t be suing each other, and the objective is to try to resolve issues as opposed to inflating issues. We’re in a particular issue right now with the Town of Southwest Ranches. But we don’t routinely or as a matter of policy in our law firm sue local government. In fact, to the contrary, we’re very guarded about our client relationships. As I said earlier, we toil in the fields of local government and the aspects that relate to Charter government, (inaudible) government and the statutes that govern them. And because of it, we’re very specifically worried about that. My law partners with me today have all have a hand in the work of our law firm. Jacob Horowitz and David Tolces and Mike Cirullo were very involved in the 2006-2008 Charter revision, and some also in regards to 2000-2002, as well. It would be a privilege and an honor to represent you, and our law firm to act as your legal counsel. I will tell you, from my heart to yours, that you have some very qualified people who’ve applied for the job. People who are actually my colleagues and friends. I have some people in this room that are colleagues and friends, as well. Some I don’t know; some I’d like to get to know better. But from the standpoint of a commitment and an obligation, I see this is as a significant responsibility. The work that you do will have great meaning to not just yourselves and your families, but for the entire County. There will be issues of conflict. There will be issues of controversy, and issues that may not sit well with certain members of the -- of the public outside this room. I watched that evolve over the last two Charter Commissions where there were issues


that affected constitutional officers, issues which affected Fire/Rescue and matters (inaudible), as well as things such as the central examining boards or the Board of Rules and Appeals, or the Broward County Planning Council, things that were on the table for discussion. The issue of constitutional officers I mentioned because it was a major issue back in the day. There was also a discussion, which I’m sure you will have at some point in time, only because it came up at that last Charter Commission regarding an elected Mayor. That was a major topic of conversation, and the potential realignment of the County Commission and the districts that affect them. So we’ve done the work. We have the experience. We have the background. I would appreciate, certainly, your support to be engaged by you, having been reviewed by the Legal Committee, which we, again, very much appreciate. I’m supposed to give you my best and final offer. Let me tell you, if I can quickly, if I can, how we arrived at the hourly rate. We have hourly rates that range, for our public clients, from 205 an hour to 250 an hour. 250 an hour’s charged by me. I’m a certified Supreme Court mediator, a mediator for a number of agencies of government, including the FDOT and others. And that’s the rate that they ascribe to our specific assignments, which are not ongoing client relationships. We’re certainly open-minded. We are also very flexible and also recognize the impact of how it is to represent governmental agencies. We’re a part of your budget. We’re a part of the budget that affects how we do and how we operate. And so to the extent that we would be open-minded about how to adjust that fee if need be, we’d certainly open that door specifically. We redundant, but we’re not -- look, we’re not in -- in a mode of trying to duplicate efforts. We all work as a law firm. We’re not a big law firm. There are 13 members of our firm. And, to the extent possible, most of them work in the local government area arena. We do commiserate. We do exchange information and views. But we all are city attorneys somewhere, for the most part, and we all spend most of our days and nights in meetings. The work that we do is not 9:00 to 5:00. I was in the office earlier than that this morning. So to the extent possible, we are accessible, we are findable. We certainly would be very happy to help you in that regard. You are a collegial body of 19. I had the pleasure of being counsel for the original Planning Council. Commissioner Gunzburger was on that council for some time. Nineteen members is a -- is a good-sized group of public officials. You will differ in your opinions about some number of things. We would be counsel for the collegial body itself, not for you individually, because that’s what the law basically tells us. And to the extent that we would be able to help the collegial body, we will do that. We will help you individually as best we possibly can. We also can be a guidepost for you in the context of sunshine, public records, Chapter 112 ethics, and the aspects -- all those aspects of government that apply to the City of Pembroke Pines and apply to this organization, as well. I am pleased to answer questions. My law partners are pleased to respond to questions. I know time is short today, and you have a large agenda. I’m happy to be


responsive to your inquiries. It would be your privilege and honor to be your counsel, my law firm specifically. And I stand happy to respond to your comments or questions. MR. MCDONALD: Commissioner Gunzburger. MS. GUNZBURGER: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. You said that your fee is $250 an hour because of your certification. Is that true for each of these other lawyers, as well? MR. GOREN: The answer is we would adjust that as appropriate. The answer is that when I do mediation work for the DOT, they pay 250 an hour. We are at varying rates, but I’d say we would offer that up as an option, as well. MS. GUNZBURGER: Thank you. So I get a non-answer. MR. GOREN: No. The answer is we’re happy to adjust the fee, as I said earlier. MS. GUNZBURGER: Right. MR. GOREN: That’s not a non -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Right. MR. GOREN: -- non-answer. You didn’t understand me. MS. GUNZBURGER: And my second question is I know that there are -- have been conflicts, having served on this County Commission for 22 years, between the cities and the County, and I think not just you, but all of the firms have represented some -- some of the firms have represented the cities. And how can we -- how can you assure us that you will be impartial? Because our goal is to do what’s best for the County. MR. GOREN: I can look at history and tell you the answer, and the answer is that in the last two Charter Commissions, when there were even appearances of a conflict or issues that were of concern to the board members, we were able to coordinate under the Florida Bar rules to engage separate counsel. It was infrequent, and it was something that was not as much of an issue as you may think. It was actually looked at carefully and addressed very promptly. As I said, we don’t sue government, so we’re not going to get into a mode of having any one of our public clients sue the government. And to the extent that there is an issue that requires attention of (inaudible), we’d simply attend to it very quickly. MS. GUNZBURGER: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: We always have the ability of using the County Attorney if we have conflict.


MS. GUNZBURGER: Oh, good. MR. MCDONALD: Any other questions? MS. GUNZBURGER: No, that was -- MR. GOREN: If I may quickly, just to supplement the answer, if I can, we have a uniquely good relationship with the County government with regard to the County Attorney’s Office, in particular, who has an exemplary staff, and people who actually understand what they’re doing. And we have worked with them in the past, not just on issues such as this, but on many other issues. To the extent that that would offer to you a benefit in the context of that exchange, I think it’s a positive that we can offer back to you, as well. MS. GUNZBURGER: Thank you. MR. MCDONALD: Mr. Kane, and then somebody -- who’s over here? Oh, Mr. Kane and then Grant. MR. KANE: Are you going to assign a specific lawyer to represent this -- MR. GOREN: I would be the main event. MR. KANE: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: Grant? MR. SMITH: Would you look to us to choose conflict counsel, or would you be choosing conflict counsel, or would you be recommending? MR. GOREN: Very good question. In the past, it -- you are the client. The end result of which is that I might recommend someone to you, but, at the end of the day, the board makes the final decision about outside special counsel, which would be deferred to by me. If you needed assistance in finding those of competence or quality that could do the work, I would certainly open the door and help you. MR. SMITH: But you would not choose them (inaudible)? MR. GOREN: In the -- yes, in the prior occasions, it was the board who made the actual decision to engage outside counsel. MR. SMITH: Thank you. MR. MCDONALD: Collins?


MR. FORMAN: How much -- how much sway do you think that an attorney should have over the process of the Charter Review Commission? MR. GOREN: I’m not the 20th member of this -- this body. I sit in City Commissions virtually three to four nights a week; I’m not the sixth member of the City Commission. You are the policy makers. You’re the ones that have to make the tough decisions and make the right reviews. As a lawyer, I’m your advocate. We’re your advocate. We are your -- we’re your counterpart in the context of dealing with the issues legally. But we’re not the voting members of this group, and -- and that’s the major issue for me, which is I don’t -- I would not be sitting as your 20th member giving you policy decision making powers. If you have legal issues and matters that affect how you do your business, that certainly would play well with my conversation. But I’m not your 20th member, and I would not choose to be that. MR. MCDONALD: Any other question from any of the -- Ms. Richards. MS. RICHARDS: Will you attend the meeting or would you send one of your paralegals? MR. GOREN: Well, I wouldn’t send a paralegal, but I would be the one to go to the meetings. MS. RICHARDS: It would be you. MR. GOREN: And in my absences, if there were absences, which do occur from time-to-time, we all able to do that specifically. MS. RICHARDS: And you’ll charge the $250 per hour? MR. GOREN: Well, I mean, that’s the rate that we think is most appropriate for this assignment, yes. I simply put that in as a range, when we initially applied, yes. MS. RICHARDS: That’s all I have. MR. MCDONALD: Any other -- MR. GOREN: But the -- but the answer is that I would be the responder. But, you know, sometimes, if any one of you had a question and you wanted to talk before a meeting, you know, there’s -- there’s an old theory of law called preventative medicine, preventative law. I’d rather that you ask a question before you make a decision, which can spend five minutes of one’s legal time, as opposed to spending a thousand dollars later trying to figure out the answer, which could be too late. So phone calls are


responded to pretty quickly in my office. MR. MCDONALD: Ms. Navarro. MS. NAVARRO: How long have you done pro bono work for the League of Cities? MR. GOREN: About 30 years. MR. MCDONALD: Any other questions? MR. GOREN: I started when I was 11. MS. NAVARRO: Thank you. MR. MCDONALD: Do you still ride motorcycles? MR. GOREN: I do. Every Sunday. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I -- I’m glad there are other lawyers in the room. MR. MCDONALD: If there’s no other questions, we’ll call on the second group. Thank you. MR. GOREN: Thank you. MS. CEPERO: Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure everyone has signed in. MR. MCDONALD: We’ve all signed in, but thank you for asking. MS. CEPERO: Thank you very much. MR. DION: Where’s the -- where is the microphone? MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Second firm is Nabors, Giblin. You ready to go? MR. NABORS: Ready. Okay. I’m Bob Nabors. First, let me say that you’re fortunate. You have some well-qualified firms that applied. And we’ll talk a little bit what maybe I think makes our firm unique. First is we just represent governments, cities, and counties. We do some work for the state, but predominantly cities and counties, and predominantly counties. We have in our firm 23 lawyers. We have, I think, six lawyers who are former County Attorneys, Broward and Washington County, Brevard County, Okaloosa County, Wakulla County. I think -- oh, Osceola County. We currently serve as County Attorney in Wakulla and up there in Okaloosa County. And so we know the County -- County government issues.


We’ve -- I -- oh, and we’ve also -- I think you -- assume that you’ve looked at our -- that you all got a copy of our resume. We’ve been involved in -- over the years in developing most of the revenue sources that counties have to have, with special assessment, impact fees, user fees, tax increment, all of those revenue sources have been kind of the playground that we’ve operated in in terms of litigation and -- and participated in, all the way up to the Supreme Court. So we really have a sense of what’s going on in terms of County government. We’ve never -- I’ve never done anything exactly like representing the commission. Although I served on the constitutional revision commission, last time, in ‘98, so that’s similar in the sense we had to deal with structural issues dealing with state government, normally. And so we would -- we would welcome the opportunity. I’m not going to go through the details of things we did (inaudible), but suffice to say that this would be an important client for our firm. We feel like we know Broward County and understand the relationships that are inherent in a complex county like this. Ed Dion is one my partners. He heads up our office here in Broward County, and as you know, was a -- was a County Attorney here. Ed’s going to talk a little bit about some of the issues we dealt with dealing with changes to Charters and even changes to state referendum and legislation. Ed. MR. DION: Thanks, Bob. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar faces that I haven’t seen in a lot of years since I -- I left the County. I’ve been with the firm now for eight years, which is kind of hard to believe, but -- and it’s a privilege to be a part of this firm. It’s also a privilege to be in front of you folks today, and we really appreciate the opportunity. A couple of things that I want to talk about is -- number one is that if you hire our firm, you get all of our firm. Even though I’m the only one who’s currently located in Fort Lauderdale, Bob is here on a regular basis, and you will have access to all of the talent that we have in both our Tallahassee and Tampa offices. I wanted to go over a couple of things that we’ve done that I think are really relevant to the things that you’re going to be doing now. Some of you may remember back in 1999, when the -- when the Broward County Legislative Delegation decided they were going to put a strong mayor proposal on the ballot. Bob and I actually worked together to craft language to change from seven Commissioners to nine, and also going from at-large to single-member districts. And we also had a competing proposal on the ballot that said, you know, that -- that basically did away with the strong mayor, and we provided in that language that in the event that both of them passed, the one that received the most votes would be the one that -- that the public actually decided they wanted. Now, we don’t -- the good news is that that never passed, and we never had to get -- had that challenge. But we think that was a creative way of us addressing that situation, and it’s something that we would provide to you today. I have also been involved with Pinellas County, who wanted to impose a sales tax for --


it’s called Green Light Pinellas. And it was a referendum issue in order -- put on the ballot in order to put light rail and increase bus service in Pinellas County. It didn’t pass, but that wasn’t because of our work. It was because the voters decided they didn’t want to tax themselves any more in Pinellas County. And the last thing I want to tell you about is that Bob’s too modest to tell you, but he and other members of our firm drafted the proposal for solar, the solar initiative that’s going to be on the ballot in 2016. And he also argued in front of the Florida Supreme Court, and we won that one, too. So that’s just a representative sample of the types of things that we do. And like Bob said, even though we represent some cities, the predominant work that we do is for counties. And I think with our experience in that, that we could really help you folks out, if that’s what you’d like for us to do. MR. NABORS: There’s probably not a -- I don’t think there’s a county in the state that we haven’t represented or are currently representing in some capacity, whether it’s litigation, finance and tax, legislative or what. And so that gives us a -- as I said before, a real sense of what’s coming around and going around in terms of county government. So if there’s a good idea somewhere, and good ideas come up and, you know, you never know where you’re going to find one, we generally know what’s happening in Florida, so -- and we -- we pride ourselves on that. We really -- we’re local government lawyers. We represent nothing but local governments, as I said, predominantly the (inaudible) counties. MR. DION: We’re happy to answer any questions you all may have. MR. MCDONALD: First question of them? (Inaudible.) MS. NAVARRO: Can you just provide us what your range of fees are? MR. DION: I think it’s in the proposal. MS. NAVARRO: Have they changed any from the proposal? MR. DION: No, they have not. MS. NAVARRO: Okay. MR. DION: Okay? So it’s -- it’s 300 for senior partners, 275 for associates. (Inaudible.) MS. NAVARRO: Yeah. MR. NABORS: We don’t charge for travel, but -- MR. DION: Right.


MR. NABORS: -- we’re going to be traveling on my time. As I stumble from Tallahassee to Fort Lauderdale sometimes, I sometimes charge for travel. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Would you explain, particularly, this initiative of solar ownership, what this is? MS. GUNZBURGER: Wait. Are you the good one or the bad one? MR. NABORS: We’re the good one. MR. DION: We’re the very good ones. MS. GUNZBURGER: I -- there are competing ones on to confuse the voters. MR. DION: That’s -- that’s the second one. MR. NABORS: Well, we’re writing a brief against that now. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. NABORS: Well, the good one is it’s a -- it’s a -- it really removes the regulatory barriers for the sale of small generation -- generation of solar energy on site or on adjacent sites. Currently, in the regulatory environment, if you generate solar energy and -- the only person -- the only place you can sell it is to the power company. You cannot sell it to anyone else. And so it’s -- it’s intended to encourage the generation on a small scale basis so that people -- so that -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. NABORS: -- remove the regulatory barriers so that you can sell it to -- you can have a -- and it’s limited in size, but you can have a parcel of property, and you could -- you could generate enough electricity, solar, for yourself plus your tenants, or you could sell it to someone adjacent to you. It’s hated by the (inaudible) utilities, and so we -- that’s -- that’s the nature of it. MR. MCDONALD: I have a question. Did you say that you would be predominantly the person -- MR. DION: I will be here. So, please, don’t hold that against us. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. DION: We can bring other people. MR. NABORS: You could actually put a call there. You could change that.


MR. IZQUIERDO: In your proposal, you -- you indicate that you also handle some work for the County Commission, but that you feel there’s no conflict. You’d still want us to execute a waiver of conflict? MR. DION: We don’t think that’s necessary right now. But what we’re doing for the County right now is basically bond work and disclosure counsel work, so we don’t think that there’s any possibility of a conflict. We are not representing the County, and I’m looking at Drew Meyers here, in any other capacity at this point in time. So unless the County Attorney’s Office hires us to do something that’s in direct conflict with your deliberations, I don’t think a conflict waiver’s necessary. MR. DIPIETRO: But if you have to do the conflict, don’t you have -- what if the County Commission disagrees and won’t give you a waiver and we don’t give you a waiver? You would have to recuse yourself? MR. DION: That would be -- that would be problematic for us. MR. DIPIETRO: So this is two-sided under the Bar rules? MR. DION: Absolutely. And -- and we’re happy to do that. I just think that the nature of the work that we perform for the County right now doesn’t present that issue. MR. DIPIETRO: But, you know, in politics, you don’t want to see it get worked out in court, so. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. DION: Well, we’re happy to do it. MR. DIPIETRO: Yeah. MR. DION: We’re happy to do it. If that’s what you’d like us to do, we’ll do that right away. MR. MCDONALD: Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you very much. MR. DION: Thanks for the opportunity. MR. MCDONALD: Are you going to call Ms. Monestine. MS. MONESTINE: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Regine Monestine. I am so pleased to have been chosen in this forum to engage you in this process. So let me tell you a little bit about me. I am a University of Florida graduate. I graduated in 1996. Go, Gators.


And since graduation, I have worked in the public sector, first as a law clerk with the Third District Court of Appeal, as -- then as an assistant attorney general working on appeals, and then I worked at the City of Miami as an assistant city attorney. Then after I became the city attorney of Florida City, and, most recently, the city attorney of North Miami. My entire career, I’ve been in public sector because I truly see myself as a public servant. With respect to charters, which is why we’re here, I’m a writer. I’m an appellate attorney. I have an appellate practice. And so for me, any time I have an opportunity to create a document that is long-lasting, that is meaningful, I’m all over it. And so when I became the city attorney of Florida City, that particular Charter had not been looked at holistically in over 30 or 40 years. I worked very closely with the mayor. Florida City has a mayor manager form of government. And we began to look at changes that we thought should be made to the Charter. We convened a board such as this to become the -- the first -- or part of that process. The county -- the City Commission appointed the board members, and I began to work with them to engage in this very process there. The entire Charter was drastically revised because, again, it had not been looked at in so many years. And I am so pleased that we had a successful not only journey but result in that we made the changes to the Charter. It went to the voters. It was successful. There were no challenges, legal or otherwise. And, to this day, that document still stands as the new -- new Charter. When I became the city attorney of North Miami, again, you know, a Charter really is the backbone, right, of any government. It’s the Constitution. And so, from my perspective, it has to work, not only for the constituents, not only for the elected body, but also for the administration, because it’s going to tell the administration how they function on a day-to-day basis. It really has to match. What the administration does needs to match with what the Charter says. And in North Miami, we found that there were some changes that needed to be -- to be made so that it was more consistent. Again, the Charter hadn’t really been looked at holistically in many years, so I began the same process, appointing -- helping the -- the council with the board, and then looking at the Charter and reviewing all that needed to be made, having the public meetings. The council voted for it and it went to the electoral body. They successfully passed it, and, again, I had a -- a great result in that that the North Miami Charter stands today. And so I’ve done this from the -- from the nuts and bolts, from beginning to end twice, and it really would be my pleasure to assist this body in -- in achieving their goals. MR. MCDONALD: Commissioner Gunzburger. MS. GUNZBURGER: Ms. Monestine, I don’t see any other attorneys listed with your law firm. Are you a one-person law firm? MS. MONESTINE: I am a solo practitioner.


MS. GUNZBURGER: You are a solo practitioner. You also did not include any rates? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, she did. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, she did. MS. GUNZBURGER: I missed it? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, fourth page. In her letter. MS. MONESTINE: My rate -- MS. GUNZBURGER: (Inaudible.) MS. MONESTINE: -- yes. My rate can be adjusted, certainly. As this is a public government, I understand that, and so I have no issues with respect to making any amendments or adjustments that are reasonable. MS. GUNZBURGER: But we might have a problem if, by any chance, you should fall ill or something and you are a one -- a solo practitioner. I’m concerned about that. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MS. GUNZBURGER: Well, I can ask her what -- what she would do under those circumstances. MS. MONESTINE: Well, God forbid, if I fell ill, you know, we can certainly have a contingency plan with respect to attorneys that we can make recommendations to. I know that the County Attorney’s Office will be very much involved in the process, as well. And any time you hire someone to do whatever service that -- you know, that they can -- they will provide for you, that certainly is a possibility. But we can make contingency so that -- that that would be avoided. But I’m healthy, so I don’t anticipate falling ill anytime soon. MR. MCDONALD: Do you have any other questions? Are -- are you still the city attorney in North Miami? MS. MONESTINE: I have a solo practice now. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Did they replace you yet? MS. MONESTINE: Yes, they recently replaced me. MR. MCDONALD: Full time attorney?


MS. MONESTINE: Yes, in-house. MR. MCDONALD: And I saw you negotiated a union support deal with FAC? MS. MONESTINE: Yes. That was a monster bear of -- of an agreement. I was really excited to know that that had a successful ending, as well. MR. MCDONALD: That was the piece that Swerdlin (Phonetic) bought that he gave back to the city and went bankrupt (inaudible) and then went back to New York. MS. MONESTINE: Yes. MR. FORMAN: I noticed that on your submittal there’s no -- there’s no address, and I didn’t see anything but a P.O. Box in the -- on the bar. Where do you practice, and what are your charges for travel? MS. MONESTINE: I practice in the North Miami area. I have an office in North Miami. It’s a virtual office, so I generally meet my clients in that particular office. And what was the second question? MR. FORMAN: Do you charge for travel? MS. MONESTINE: I don’t charge for travel. MR. FORMAN: And you don’t have any coverage counsel at this point? MS. MONESTINE: Not at this juncture. But that can be adjusted, as well. MR. MCDONALD: You have a question of her? MR. SMITH: I do. MR. MCDONALD: Grant. MR. SMITH: Would you be amenable to working with other counsel should we choose to go with a -- a different firm with more depth, and should they have a conflict or needed additional assistance? Would you be comfortable not being the necessarily counsel of record, but assisting the counsel of record? MS. MONESTINE: Absolutely. I would have no objection to that. Any other questions? MR. MCDONALD: Any -- any questions for Ms. Monestine? Okay. Thank you. MS. MONESTINE: Okay. Well, great. Thank you so much for your time.


MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Before we vote on which firm we have, is there any discussion anybody wants to bring up? Burnadette, you were going to bring up, Ms. Weeks? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: One of the things we talked about in our -- in our meeting was just really the -- the issue that Grant just brought up, and from the standpoint of if we have a main counsel, ensuring that there is some diversity within the pool of people that we select. And we did that before. We had a Charter Review Commission the last time that thought that was very -- a very important issue. And we engaged counsel to do specific tasks that weren’t necessarily the -- Sam Goren was our counsel, and then we had other counsel that were from -- from smaller firms and -- well, I guess they were about the same size, but firms that did other things. So one of the things that we’re really fortunate to have here is three really strong firms. And I’ll tell you, as someone who practices in the area of local government, when you do this type of work and you do it at a level of being a city attorney, you pretty much write. That’s what you do. And you’re used to writing. And any -- any one of these people would be very well qualified to represent this body. So I hope that we will continue what has been started in the way of allowing there to be some flexibility with respect to not having necessarily just one firm, but also offering some diversity in terms of what -- how we select, and some latitude, even if that meant having a -- you know, having the possibility of having one main firm and even having two of the other firms, as we might need them on some type of rotating basis, depending on the issue. I think that could be a -- you know, something that this board can consider. And I -- and believe me when I tell you there will be enough work to go around with the type of -- the length of time that we have, we’re looking at, in addition to the many issues that I’m anticipating we will be covering. MR. MCDONALD: I have a question for you. Did you say on the previous Charter, you had backup attorneys? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: We did. In fact, we had -- we had a few firms. MR. MCDONALD: Who did you have last time? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: We had -- we had a transportation company -- firm, and that was -- it was Thornton Williams, the Thornton Williams firm. They did a lot of FDOT work. And we also had -- and Sam would probably be better able to tell us -- we also had maybe one other firm or -- you know, that -- that we had as backup counsel for particular issues that came up from time-to-time. Because, again, all of these firms are very well qualified to do the work. MR. MCDONALD: I’ve got Larry and then Suzette, and then Commissioner


Gunzburger. MR. DAVIS: Well, when we met as a group -- I guess we’re all sitting here. I don’t know why, but -- and -- was that by accident? But when we met, we -- we voted on the -- on these really four firms, but I guess Weiss Serota dropped out. Sam’s firm, Goren’s firm was the only one that, you know, was being supported by all four of us in that. And, I mean, I just -- I mean, for me, I’d like to just see -- you know, they’re a local firm, they’ve done this work before -- MR. MCDONALD: Well, I’m not really looking for people to make their opinions, you know, to lobby the committee on which one. MR. DAVIS: I’m not lobbying. I’m telling you what I think. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. DAVIS: You know, really, I’m not trying to lobby them, just telling them what I think, Tom. And I mean -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That sounds (inaudible). MR. DAVIS: -- if you don’t want us to discuss it now, I won’t, but -- MR. MCDONALD: Well, what Burnadette brought up was a point, you know, of the process. I think we wanted to, you know -- you know, I don’t want all 19 people to stand up here, I worked with this firm, I worked with that firm. We’ll do that when we vote. I just wanted to get the ground rules down, basically. MR. KANE: Well, Mr. Chair -- MS. MAYLOR: I have a question. MR. KANE: -- let’s go to that point and decide how we’re going to rank these firms. MR. MCDONALD: All right. Well, first I want to -- I want to -- no, first I’d like to let Suzette and then Suzanne. MS. MAYLOR: I was going to ask Burnadette as to how I guess the rotation worked. Was it just the volume of work that allowed the other firms to become, you know, backup counsel, or were specific issues delegated to specific firms that had other strengths, or how would that work? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I think it was both the volume, in addition to there were subcommittees. And I’m assuming we’ll probably break down into subcommittees at some point. And there were backgrounds that were more suited to the work of that


subcommittee, and so that’s how the firms would, you know, get some rotational, you know, representation of the board. So I think that would -- you know, and it’s just my opinion. And I think we probably should give some thought to -- and my -- my point, Mr. Chair, was to talk about the structure of what we might do, and that was the -- that was the reason -- MR. MCDONALD: Right. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- for bringing -- you know, bringing -- MR. MCDONALD: Right. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- the issue up. MR. MCDONALD: Right. Final, and then we’ll -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Thank you. I respectfully disagree, because I think you need continuity in this process that’s going to be going on -- well, I’m waiting to hear our attorney’s, our current attorney’s opinion as to the question that Mr. Davis brought up in the letter that we all received as to the length of our term on this -- MR. MCDONALD: We’re going to bring that up at the end of the day. MS. GUNZBURGER: Yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. And I think that continuity is most important, and that we should, if we choose a firm to be our counsel, that we should feel that those might -- would be choices when we see specific things that they -- that should be covered by someone else. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Can I just, really quickly? We had continuity -- continuity before, but we also had the option, and that’s all I’m advocating for. MR. MCDONALD: Let’s -- let’s -- let’s rank the three firms, right now. Pick the firm we’re going to have, and then we’ll the discussion further of whether we’ll open it up to other firms then. All right? I think we’re going to pick the main firm. Does staff have any paper they can hand out for us to vote on? MR. DAVIS: You know -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. DAVIS: -- Tom, listen, it’s all -- it’s all public record anyway. I mean, why -- we don’t need paper. MR. MCDONALD: We’ve got 19 people.


MR. SMITH: So hold on. So somebody needs to make a motion -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I make a motion -- MR. SMITH: -- to -- to adopt something. MR. FORMAN: I move that we -- that we -- that we rank the firms Gordon -- Goren Cherof, first, Monestine second, and Nabors Giblin third. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Nay. MR. KANE: Second. MR. MCDONALD: Who seconded that? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Kane. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Kane. MR. MCDONALD: Discussion? MS. GUNZBURGER: I’m going to offer a substitute -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Competing motion. MS. GUNZBURGER: -- a competing motion. And I would rank the firms Goren, first, Nabors Giblin second, and -- MR. MCDONALD: All right. MS. GUNZBURGER: -- Monestine third. MR. MCDONALD: I’ve got to – MR. REYES: Second that. MR. MCDONALD: I’m going to set aside the gavel to you, and I’m going to make a motion that we get out 19 pieces of paper and write down your first choice, your second choice, and your third choice, and have staff count them. MS. GUNZBURGER: But then you have to sign it. MR. MCDONALD: You’ve got to sign it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.)


MR. MCDONALD: Larry, every vote they take at the County Commission is written like that. They don’t -- they never (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: You’re putting people on the spot for -- number one will be your first choice, number two will be your second choice, and number three will be your third choice. We want to be -- we want to be (inaudible). MR. FORMAN: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR. MCDONALD: Yes. MR. FORMAN: There’s no second to the motion and-- MR. MCDONALD: I got -- can I get a -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- motion (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did the Chair recognize (inaudible). MS. GUNZBURGER: Wait, no. I’ll -- is there a second to -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. MS. GUNZBURGER: -- to Mr. McDonald’s -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. IZQUIERDO: Second. MS. GUNZBURGER: Okay, there is a second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Mr. Chair? MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. MR. MEYERS: I just want everyone to understand that it is critical that they identify themselves. MR. MCDONALD: Sign your name.


MS. GUNZBURGER: Put your name on the paper. MR. MEYERS: Legibly, please. MR. SMITH: Who is going to be tabulating? MS. CEPERO: We’re going to need a piece of paper. Staff will tabulate. MR. LABRADOR: Please sign and print your name. MR. SMITH: Oh, I didn’t sign. I just printed. MR. LABRADOR: Well, that’s fine. So long as it’s got your name, that’s good. (Paper was distributed and firms were ranked.) MR. MEYERS: Has everybody submitted their ballot? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: There was no vote on any motion. I’m assuming that people essentially were -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: If you want to take a formal vote on it, you can do it any way you want. We can hold them, but I -- ultimately -- MR. MCDONALD: The motion was that we were going to rank them, and it was seconded by -- is it Lefty? MR. IZQUIERDO: Yes. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Jose. MR. MCDONALD: I can’t read your name. And the motion was that we would rank them and whoever was ranked first -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: -- would be selected. All right. All those in favor of that motion, signify by saying, aye. Any opposed? MR. FORMAN: Aye. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. We have one, Collins dissenting.


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have one other. MR. DAVIS: I dissented. MR. MCDONALD: And Larry Davis dissented. VOTE PASSES 16 TO 2 WITH H.COLLINS FORMAN, JR., AND LARRY DAVIS VOTING NO. MR. MEYERS: Mr. Chair, while we have just a moment, if I may, I’d just like to introduce my colleague, Mark Journey, from the County Attorney’s Office, who also is going to assist in any way he can regarding Charter Review. MR. FORMAN: What happened to Ms. Coffey? MR. MEYERS: Ms. Coffey got called out on something and I believe will return, depending on how long the meeting goes. MS. GUNZBURGER: She was here earlier. MR. MCDONALD: Do you have the results? MR. MEYERS: We’ll bring it to you right now. MR. MCDONALD: Well, why don’t you read them, Drew? MR. MEYERS: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Okay. And it’s the fewest amount of points wins, because -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Right. MR. MEYERS: -- it’s ranked one, two, three. So with the fewest amount of points is the Goren firm, with 21 points. The second fewest amount of points is the Nabors firm at 41. And the Monestine firm is at 46. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Wow. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. MS. GUNZBURGER: I move that we accept the numbers as given, and we appoint the Goren firm as our legal counsel.


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I second. MR. MCDONALD: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I have another motion. MR. MCDONALD: A motion? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I move that we allow all of the firms to be on a -- on a list of -- of rotating firms that we might decide to use from time-to-time based on the committee and -- and the vote of the -- or the vote of the board. MR. DIPIETRO: Second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Second. THE REPORTER: Who seconded? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: DiPietro. MR. MCDONALD: And not -- I -- one question. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: DiPietro. MR. MCDONALD: You said rotating. I mean, do they necessarily rotate or -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: No. MR. MCDONALD: -- do you pick people by their expertise? MS. GUNZBURGER: When necessary. MR. MCDONALD: When necessary. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: When necessary, yes. MR. DIPIETRO: I second. MR. MEYERS: She can’t -- MR. MCDONALD: Oh --


MR. MEYERS: -- do multiple voices -- MR. MCDONALD: -- okay. MR. MEYERS: -- so one at a time. MR. MCDONALD: Will you repeat the motion again, Ms. Weeks? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I move that we allow -- of course, we’ve already made the motion for the Goren firm, but that we have a -- use the other two firms that were a part of this process on a rotating basis as needed. MR. DIPIETRO: I second that. MR. MCDONALD: Any discussion? Drew? MR. MEYERS: I just wanted to ask two things. Number one, on the first motion for Goren, was it unanimous? Was there anyone who dissented on that? For the record. MS. GUNZBURGER: Yes, it was unanimous. MR. MEYERS: Okay. Thank you. And on number two, if there’s a second and discussion on that, we would just want to make sure that there’s clarity in there in terms of process, who selects, how you define necessity. We just want to make sure that -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well -- MR. MEYERS: -- the motion reflects the will of the board. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- a part of my first motion was that we’re going to have committees at some point, so it could be based on the committee, or a vote of the -- of the full board. MR. DIPIETRO: May I offer a suggestion? What if we -- there is a conflict that these two firms be considered first as potential conflict or -- not conflict counsel, but if we need outside counsel, that we would use one of these two firms first. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: That’s -- that’s perfectly fine, but that doesn’t really address my issue, which is for all of the firms to possibly get work, and -- but for the Goren firm to be the primary firm doing the work. MR. DIPIETRO: Okay. MR. DAVIS: But I think -- I think what you’re -- what David is saying --


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Shh. MR. DAVIS: -- no, no -- is that these firms are pre-qualified. We don’t have to interview more -- them again -- MR. DIPIETRO: Right. MR. DAVIS: -- to give them work, whereas if we were to bring in another firm, we might want to interview them prior to. This would not be necessary. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: But I think David’s other point is that only in the, you know, instance of conflict, and that’s not really the spirit of my motion. MR. MCDONALD: Did you have a question? MR. KANE: Yes, I have a question on that issue. And that is who makes the determination when we’re going to pick an alternative firm? MS. LETO: Exactly. MR. KANE: I mean, continuity, to me, I mean, if I’m on a committee, I would like that lawyer to be involved in as many committees as possible, unless there’s a conflict between what -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. MR. KANE: -- we’re deciding in the County and some other city or county. I just -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: What I -- what -- MR. KANE: I think giving the committee the right to say, okay, we’ll use so-and-so firm because we want to give them work isn’t -- to me, it doesn’t sit well. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: What if we allow Sam to make that decision? Would that be something that -- MR. GRANT: No. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- no? MR. KANE: Well --


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: What if we, as a committee, allow -- MR. KANE: Well, as a -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- as a Commission -- MR. KANE: -- board would make more sense. In other words -- MR. MCDONALD: Do you want to bring that back if -- MR. KANE: -- if the committee wants to come back and recommend that we have -- MR. MCDONALD: -- you want to bring that back every time you want to pick a -- use an attorney for something to the full board? MR. KANE: You know, I just -- the continuity issue here really bothers me. I mean, -- MR. MCDONALD: I think that her motion was was that Sam Goren’s firm did the majority of the work and, on special needs, it’s a committee a subset. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: It worked before, and it was fine. MS. GUNZBURGER: Well, but I think the word, rotating, is your problem. MR. MCDONALD: Yeah, the rotating. MS. GUNZBURGER: That -- that is the problem. MR. MCDONALD: There’s no guarantee of -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well, if -- and my -- my motion contemplates exactly what was done before, which is if there is a particular committee that this an issue that we, you know, want to focus on and this is a specialty we, you know, want -- we might have that specialty from another firm, if we decide it, and maybe we bring it back to the full board. I understand, you know, where you’re coming from. But maybe we bring it back to the full board. But I do think there -- in addition to the continuity issue that you bring up, I do think there are other considerations that will still meet what you -- you know, what you want with the continuity. Sam’s firm is going to be -- they’re going to review everything. But, you know, they don’t have to necessarily provide the work for everything when other firms, these other firms are as qualified to do the same type of work -- MS. GUNZBURGER: But that -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- that we’re doing.


MS. GUNZBURGER: -- that defeats what we just voted on. MR. REYES: Well, can I just -- listen, maybe it’s just -- maybe it’s just me, but don’t know that this board is a board of patronage or anything. I’m just looking for the best law firm to give us the best advice and to make critical series of decisions that are going to be made by this Commission, and we have to live by that. So I’m not sure that -- that -- we selected a law firm. The law firm is the one that is, obviously, well established, a lot of experience. So at the end of the day, I admire, for example, the young lady that was just here, but you don’t show up at a presentation and have no redundancy when you’re talking about addressing the Charter Review Commission and try to meet that gap. And that obvious opening is a problem. So as far as I’m concerned, we hired a law firm to give us legal advice, and not legal advice just so the Commission and the committee can do what they want. No. Legal advice to the Commission and any committees that are set up as a consequence of this Commission. So it seems to me pretty easy, that we’ve got a law firm. If the issue arises, then we have that -- that time and an opportunity to raise the question about whether or not there’s a conflict and some other counsel, and you can look back to this firm or the Nabors firm and decide what to do. To me, the bigger issue, really, in looking at the -- at the recitations today was the difference between whether the collective impact of having the Nabors firm have a statewide reach versus the local, obviously, knowledge that Goren brings to the table, whether that was somehow a distinguishing difference that we had to look at. Obviously, the Commission as a whole decided Goren has the knowledge by ranking him number one. I think that decision is pretty clear. I don’t think we have to do anything else. Having said that, we can always give our counsel a listing of firms and say, look, these are the other short listed firms. If conflicts arise, look to those firms to talk to them, and maybe they’ll bring them in. But I don’t want to tie their hands, nor do I want to make another list. MS. GUNZBURGER: I’d like to add to what my colleague, Mr. Reyes, said. I really feel that when we look for somebody outside of the firm that we’ve chosen, when we’ve talked about continuity, I liked what Mr. DiPietro said, that they would be considered, but I have a feeling that I heard from you that there was a firm that you picked that was separate because they were specialists in transportation. And I would see that that’s where you might need a specialty firm, rather than a general firm. I don’t think any of the three really were specializing in something so esoteric, and that we’re picking a firm that’s really done this several times. They’re -- they know all the areas. And then the areas that they feel uncomfortable with may or may not be the ones that these other two firms have expertise in.


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well, let -- let me revise – if the other person who’s making the second -- (inaudible). I don’t know who made the second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: But perhaps we can revise it to allow Sam to choose if he thinks it’s appropriate, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a conflict, but let Sam choose, if he believes it’s appropriate for these other two firms to get work. And my -- and just to your point, Carlos, of, you know, my thought wasn’t to have the committees do whatever they want. The legal counsel is supposed to be mutual legal counsel for the purposes of giving advice to this board. So I don’t think any one of these law firms would jeopardize their reputations or credibility by giving advice that they thought some particular committee would -- would like to see happen. I think that’s -- that wasn’t my point. So I think that if there is a second for Sam being able to make the decision and we go -- we all believe that these firms are all qualified, perhaps that would be the way to address the issue. MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. Who was the second of the motion. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: DiPietro. MR. MCDONALD: Would you accept that? MR. DIPIETRO: I’ll second it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. DIPIETRO: I’ll second it. MR. MCDONALD: The -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Wait. Are you now giving the decision to Sam? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Yes. MS. GUNZBURGER: We didn’t -- he’s -- MS. WEEKS: There’s a motion and a second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: I have -- I have one comment, is that, you know, Broward County has had a policy of using small businesses, and most contracts that go out for bid from


Purchasing have a small business component. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh. MR. MCDONALD: It’s currently race and gender neutral, it’s small business. I don’t know the size of these firms, whether they would -- I think they would -- there’s only one firm that meets small business. And I think that it would in the spirit of Broward County to have a small firm in that rotation. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. FORMAN: Can I speak to that? MR. MCDONALD: Yes. MR. FORMAN: I think it’s -- I think it’s totally appropriate to do that, but I wouldn’t want to delegate responsibility in this committee, to any committee. So, me personally, I’m happy to consider that, and I think that that’s a good thing, particularly since we have qualified people. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: And I only bring it up that Sam might do the referrals only from the standpoint of the issue -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Shh. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- not having to come back before the board, because I think that’s an issue that Sam is sensitive to, as well. And I think that, you know, he -- he’s a smart guy, he knows a lot of attorneys, and, you know, trust me. He’s very qualified to be in a position to do that, to address -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- not only Tom’s small business ideas (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Let me -- as a point of information, the firms were ranked Goren first, Nabors second, and -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Give me the vote -- give me the vote again. MR. LABRADOR: It was -- MR. MCDONALD: Twenty-one for Goren?


MR. LABRADOR: -- 21 for Goren, 41 for Nabors, 46 for Monestine. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: So there was a motion, we passed it, and we selected the firm of Goren – I don’t want t say the size of the firm. Goren -- the -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. NAVARRO: Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, could you explain the ranking that the -- we ranked one, two three -- MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. MS. NAVARRO: -- so the lowest count is the winner. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. MCDONALD: The lowest number of points won. We have one, two, three. MR. DAVIS: It’s like being over par. MR. MCDONALD: So the -- there’s been a motion, there’s been discussion on giving contracts to the two other firms. First there was talk about doing a rotating list, but actually it’s been changed. The motion’s been changed that we add those two firms, that it’s at the discretion of the Goren firm if they need help, if they have a conflict, if there’s an area of specialty that one of these other firms may have that the Goren firm feels may be better, the Goren firm can choose one of those two firms from the list to give work to. Is that pretty much your motion? MS. WEEKS: Yes, that’s great. MR. MCDONALD: Do you think that would be a workable solution, Mr. Goren? MR. GOREN: Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. MR. MCDONALD: Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible) second. MR. KANE: I seconded.


MR. MCDONALD: All those opposed? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I thought you did. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I thought DiPietro did. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I said we should delegate our authority. MR. MCDONALD: We should not delegate our authority. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Should not. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: You lost. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Who made the motion? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I made the motion. MR. MEYERS: Okay. And it was seconded by -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: DiPietro. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Okay. And opposed was Mr. Forman. MR. MCDONALD: Mr. Forman. That’s twice today. VOTE PASSES 17 TO 1 WITH MR. FORMAN VOTING NO. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. With that -- congratulations. Thank you all. Great presentations. MR. GOREN: Thank you all very much. Thank you very much for your support. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you start right now, next week? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is there any control of the air conditioner in here?


MR. SMITH: Mr. Chair? MR. MCDONALD: Yes. MR. SMITH: I don’t know -- and this is probably a question for -- for Drew and Monica, but is there a process, is there a formal process to engage them with a -- with a written agreement? Because if there is, I would like to make a motion to give the Chair the authority to enter into a retainer agreement with the Goren firm. MR. KANE: And that includes the fee, the hourly fee? MR. SMITH: The hourly fee that was quoted. MR. KANE: Oh. MS. GUNZBURGER: Or to negotiate it down. MR. MCDONALD: Would you make that motion for the Chair, with the help of the County Attorney’s Office could negotiate a contract with the attorney? MR. MEYERS: Sure. Yes. MR. MCDONALD: He’d like to make a motion that a committee of myself and some of you -- you or someone you designate from your office your office -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Correct. MR. MCDONALD: -- we negotiate with the three firms the contract, the formal contract? MR. MEYERS: Yes. Yes. MR. MCDONALD: For the top firm? You don’t want us to come up with a contract for the other two? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MR. KANE: Mr. Chair? MR. DAVIS: Wait, wait. I’ll -- I’ll second it. You want to second it? MR. KANE: I’ll second it. I have a question, though. It was apparent to me that Mr. Goren said that -- I got the impression the fee was somewhat negotiable. MS. GUNZBURGER: Yes.


MR. KANE: And not just what was quoted in the document. MR. MCDONALD: We said we would negotiate with them. MR. KANE: Right. MR. MCDONALD: That Drew and I will sit down and negotiate. MR. KANE: I thought Grant said whatever’s in their proposal. MR. MCDONALD: Not -- so we’re just doing Mr. Goren’s contract now. I guess Mr. Goren can bring back the contract for the other two firms. MS. GUNZBURGER: And then we get to vote on it. MR. SMITH: Okay. So you would you like me to -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have already voted on (inaudible). MR. SMITH: Okay. So would you like me to make a different motion? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MR. MCDONALD: Let’s go with -- MR. SMITH: Okay. I make a motion that the Commission authorize the Chair to enter into negotiations with Mr. Goren’s firm, and, upon successful completion of those negotiations, to execute an agreement, a retainer agreement, with the firm. MR. MEYERS: Yes. It’s going to have to be approved by the County Commission. The agreement, I think, will be between the County Commission and the Goren firm. But it could be negotiated -- MR. MCDONALD: Okay. MR. MEYERS: -- and then those terms can be voted on. MR. MCDONALD: It goes to the County -- it goes to the County Commission for approval? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I don’t think so. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: This -- this body has its own budget, and that (inaudible).


MR. MCDONALD: And while we’re talking about the budget at the end of the meeting here. MR. FORMAN: I’ll second the motion. MR. MEYERS: Yeah, I mean, I have to look at it, but I’m not aware that this body has the ability to contract -- MS. GUNZBURGER: We don’t have financial -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MS. GUNZBURGER: -- powers. MR. MEYERS: Yeah. We’ll -- we’ll look at it. To the extent that -- if we can modify the motion to say to the extent the board has the power, it’ll be done. Otherwise, it’ll go to the County Commission. MR. MCDONALD: All right. Is that acceptable? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It is. MS. GUNZBURGER: Yes. MR. SMITH: I authorize the County -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. SMITH: -- I authorize the County Commission to sign it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Who seconded it? MR. FORMAN: I did. MR. MCDONALD: Collins seconded. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. MR. DAVIS: You don’t want us to write that on a piece of paper? MR. MCDONALD: Larry, Judge Hurley said you’re a smart ass. MR. DAVIS: I was on the right side this time.


VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. The next item is -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Aren’t you always on the right side? MR. MCDONALD: Is the Executive Director discussion. If -- we had a committee. I guess there was only three people on the committee, and one person didn’t show up. MS. GUNZBURGER: Could not. MR. MCDONALD: All right. Commissioner Gunzburger. So it was down to -- it was down to two people, Marilyn Leto, who was Chair, and -- with Lori Moseley, who’s not here today. They came up with two names, Lisa Aronson and another gentleman. The other gentleman dropped out yesterday, due to a job offer. But I want to read you the minutes from our last meeting, and number -- page 102 of 114. “Mr. McDonald: They have to have at least a minimum of three, so I guess if it was three or less than five, you don’t have to have a -- you can bring it right to the committee. Ms. Moseley: To make a presentation. Mr. McDonald: So if there’s more than three, to shortlist down to three and bring them back to the board. Ms. Maylor: I’m going to say five or more. Mr. McDonald: If there’s only four that apply, we’ll see them all. Ms. Gunzburger: It never works that way, because people (inaudible) blah, blah, blah.” But we shortened our shortlist down to five. We had 40 applicants. Staff deemed that 25 were -- met the requirements, but we were only given a list of two. And I guess I feel that the one that was there was -- is uniquely qualified, but I think that some of you, in reading the minutes, you asked for some -- a job description. There was some -- you asked some things to be waived. You were looking for people that might have social media skills. And I think giving only one applicant for us to interview today, I think that kind of short-changes the system. I think I’d like to send the committee back -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh. MR. MCDONALD: -- and come back with more people. MS. NAVARRO: Absolutely. MR. MCDONALD: Could I see a show of hands of who would like to see more applicants come back? Is there more than a majority? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: All right. There was only three on that committee. If anybody else


would like to also join that committee so that -- because it kind of came to loggerheads because you only had two people voting at the time, is there anyone else who would like to join that shortlist committee? Leftee? MR. IZQUIERDO: (Nodding head.) MR. MCDONALD: And I’ll actually join that as a member, not as the chair. Ms. Leto will remain as chair. So that will be five of us now. MS. NAVARRO: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: We will coordinate a time to get back. We’ll look at -- Monica, you had 25 applicants staff said that -- now it’s down to 24, because one -- MS. CEPERO: Correct. MR. MCDONALD: Right. So we’ll look at those 24 -- I’m sorry? MS. GUERRO: Is that one applicant here? MR. MCDONALD: The one applicant is here. MS. GUERRO: Oh, we’re -- oh, okay. MR. MCDONALD: Lisa. She was the previous Executive Director who’s -- you know -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MR. MCDONALD: Oh, okay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, you don’t proceed. MR. MCDONALD: All right. So anybody else like to join the committee? MS. RICHARDS: No, but there is a gentleman in this room who had applied but was never interviewed. I don’t know whether the -- MR. MCDONALD: Nobody was interviewed. MS. RICHARDS: Nobody was. MR. MCDONALD: Nobody was. They short-listed down to 25. MS. RICHARD: Just from reading --


MR. MCDONALD: The staff looked at the qualifications that were required. They got down to the 25. The committee -- the two committee members looked at the 25 and they only picked two. One of those two -- they didn’t interview them. Just reading the resumes. There was a short -- it was a short list. They weren’t to interview. They were to short list, bring them back to us to interview. So if he was one of the 25 that was qualified, he’ll be given an opportunity that people can look at him again. MS. CEPERO: Point of clarification, Mr. Chair? All 40 applications were reviewed by the subcommittees. They discussed, during the meeting, 25, the 25 that were deemed by staff as meeting the minimum qualifications. MR. MCDONALD: They got all 40? MS. CEPERO: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: But you had already deemed that 15 of them were not qualified? MS. CEPERO: Well, we made that suggestion just to help in the process -- MR. MCDONALD: Okay. MS. CEPERO: -- but we didn’t make any determination. We just made the review -- MS. LETO: We reviewed them all. MS. CEPERO: -- as to which ones met the minimum -- MR. MCDONALD: Did -- MS. CEPERO: -- qualifications that were outlined. MR. MCDONALD: -- Ms. Leto, did the -- the 15 that they dropped, did you guys agree that the 25 remaining parties were the best 25? MS. LETO: Yeah. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. So I’ll have the committee look at the best 25 -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Twenty-five, right. MR. MCDONALD: -- whenever you -- MS. CEPERO: And then now there’s 24. MR. MCDONALD: Twenty-four.


MS. CEPERO: Yes, sir. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. MS. GUNZBURGER: And maybe -- I’d like to make a suggestion, Mr. Chair -- those 15 who were deemed not qualified be notified that they’re not going to be considered, so that they would know. MS. CEPERO: Mr. Chair, yes, everybody was sent notification. In the letters that were sent to the other 23 members of the 25 that were not shortlisted, it was -- do you have a copy of what went out -- what we said was that -- that the short list -- the subcommittee shortlisted two members, however, it was coming to the full CRC, and we did not know if it was going to be opened up again or if -- you know, it was not a definitive answer that -- MR. MCDONALD: Right. MS. CEPERO: -- you’re off the list. MR. MCDONALD: Ms. Leto? MS. LETO: Can we send something out to the 23 that we’re -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Reconsidering. MS. LETO: -- doing this again? Because some of them may drop out. MR. MCDONALD: We -- we may want to -- Monica, she -- she has a good point. We may want to send a letter to the remaining people that the committee’s reconvening to consider a short list to go to the full committee. If you’re no longer interested in being considered, would you please notify us in 48 hours. MS. CEPERO: I have the email. Sorry. Found it. It -- sorry. I pulled up the other one. We’re trying to find it. But we certainly can send out any, you know, notification to the remaining folks or however you’d like us to proceed, we’ll be happy to do so. MR. MCDONALD: Now, we have on that committee Commissioner Mosely, Ms. Leto, you -- you’re the Chair. I was going to join the committee. Who else is on -- MS. GUNZBURGER: I am. MR. MCDONALD: You’re on the committee. Leftee? Yeah. Anybody else like to join that committee?


MR. IZQUIERDO: That’s my fault. MR. MEYERS: Mr. Chair? MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. MR. MEYERS: I just -- I’m not -- I don’t believe we’ve adopted rules yet, and I just want to make sure that we’re doing things relatively clean from a parliamentary standpoint. So on this, is it just -- is it everyone’s understanding that the Chair has the discretion to appoint the committees -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. MR. MEYERS: -- without there being a motion? And then secondly, I know there was initial referral of this matter to the committee, and now it’s going to be sent back. Is that something that’s also -- I saw everybody raise their hand. MR. MCDONALD: Well, we voted on that. MR. MEYERS: Okay. But -- MR. MCDONALD: We just voted on that. MR. MEYERS: -- motion -- there was a motion. I think you turned over the gavel and made a motion. There was a second. Just for the record. I -- I know you said everyone is in favor of that and -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: -- and Burnadette made – there was the second? Okay. So that’s -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: No, no. No, no. I didn’t second. I just have a point of clarification. MR. MCDONALD: Go ahead, Burnadette. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I’m wondering -- I don’t think we agreed that that was going to be the process for ever and ever after we adopt rules; right? But we did -- MR. MCDONALD: Right. We haven’t adopted rules yet. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- agree as to this point -- up to this point that we would have a committee -- the two committees that we’ve established so far. So I’m not sure if I misheard the last part of what you said or -- but I don’t -- in other words --


MR. MCDONALD: Who -- who appointed the committees last time? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well (inaudible) -- MR. MCDONALD: I mean -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- we agreed that there would be committees. That’s the point I’m making; right? So I think that when we get to a point of, you know, we decide what committees we’re going to have, I mean, we -- we’re just not going to have the Chair just say -- MR. MCDONALD: I have -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- (inaudible) -- MR. MCDONALD: -- I have not appointed anybody to a committee. I’ve asked for volunteers on all -- on both of them. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: No, no. I think you may have misunderstood. MR. MCDONALD: Right. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I -- I thought I heard Drew say that we -- you know, the Chair would be appointing the committees. I’m fine with everything we’ve all agreed to up to this point, right, and I don’t have a problem if we all agree to the Chair appointing all the committees. I just don’t think we’re at a point -- and -- and forgive me if I misheard the last part of it, but I just want to make sure that we are -- MR. MCDONALD: Okay. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- you know, once we have rules, whatever the rules say is what -- MR. MCDONALD: Well -- all right. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- we will do. We don’t have any hard and fast rules right now that the Chair is going to -- MR. KANE: With all due -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- appoint (inaudible). MR. KANE: -- you asked for volunteers, as I recall. MR. MCDONALD: I asked for volunteers. Does anybody want be on it?


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: No, no, no. That -- that’s -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s fine. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- but I’m talking about committees themselves. MR. KANE: We’re -- we’re going to establish rules and that’ll be covered. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Exactly. MR. KANE: We haven’t done any rules yet. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: But -- but I thought Drew was saying that -- MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Monica -- MR. KANE: He wanted to make sure at this point, without rules, that we all agreed that he could go ahead and appoint committees. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Ms. Navarro has got the floor, please. MS. NAVARRO: I think that what I heard Drew say was -- specific to the question, at hand, was to clarify that there -- there was no official motion that, yes, we were bringing new members into this committee and that the decision was being deferred back to the committee. So what Drew was simply bringing up to the Chair was that since we have not yet adopted official rules, that if we, just for the sake of clarity, that would we perhaps want to go back and revisit the formality with which those -- MR. MCDONALD: Good point. MS. NAVARRO: -- those members that were just recently -- that volunteered to be a part, and then formalize that it was going to go back to the committee. MR. MEYERS: Thank you. MS. NAVARRO: Drew, did I summarize that correctly? MR. MEYERS: Far more artfully than I stated it, initially, yes. MS. NAVARRO: Okay. Okay. I believe that that is the specific issue then, so it’s up to


you, Mr. Chair -- MR. MCDONALD: So -- MS. NAVARRO: -- if you want to formalize -- MR. MCDONALD: -- specifically -- MS. NAVARRO: -- anything. MR. MCDONALD: -- but specifically the motion is that we were going to add -- the motion’s that we were going to add to the Chair of the -- the Executive Director Search Team, we’re going to add members to the committee -- MS. NAVARRO: To the committee, and they volunteered. MR. MCDONALD: -- and they volunteered, and we’re going to refer that back to the selection committee to look at those remaining 23 -- MS. NAVARRO: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: -- resumes, and they will short list a minimum of three people to come back -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Between three and five. MR. MCDONALD: -- between three and five to come back to the committee for an interview. Is that what your motion is? MS. NAVARRO: That -- that is my motion. MR. MCDONALD: And -- okay. Is there a second? MS. GUNZBURGER: Second. MR. MCDONALD: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Okay. MR. MEYERS: Thank you. VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MR. MCDONALD: Who volunteered to join the committee is Leto, Gunzburger -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Leto and Moseley.


MR. MCDONALD: -- and Moseley. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You did. MR. MCDONALD: Myself. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And Jose. MR. MCDONALD: Jose. Anybody else like to join? Okay. Do I need a motion? MR. MEYERS: No. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. We’re finished with that, then. MS. CEPERO: Point of clarification. Will you want -- is it the will of the Commission to have interviews at the next CRC meeting? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. MCDONALD: Can we have a show of hands, who would like to interview at the next meeting? MS. GUNZBURGER: I want it over with. MR. MCDONALD: Yes (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Tom. MR. MCDONALD: Oh, right, I’m sorry. We need a motion. Do I have a motion? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You don’t need a motion. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, you don’t. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We’re good, Tom. MR. MCDONALD: Larry. MR. DAVIS: Tom, I -- I know that you had asked that -- to bring this up under other business, but I think it fits into this discussion about the Executive Director. And that -- and that’s I wrote Mr. Labrador a memorandum last week in regard to the time frames that we have as a Commission. I know when I was appointed, everybody was, oh, we’ve got to do this for three years, because you need to bring this to the Commission and this -- on -- in June of 2018, right before -- you know, before the general election year, and you serve as Commissioner until November -- right after the election in


November of 2018. But in reading the Charter, the Charter seems to say to me that we have a -- an appointment which is only for two years. So if you -- if you read it, it’s under 602. So if that’s the case, I mean, here’s my fear. We -- I think we need to get this clarified, because if we don’t get this clarified and -- there’s two ways that we could get -- have problems as the Charter Review, I believe. One, in July of 2017, someone could file a dec action with the circuit court and say that we can’t spend any more money because we’re only appointed for two years, and there is no Charter Review Commission, and we haven’t done anything. Second, if no one does that, if they wait to see if we put something on the ballot that they don’t like, and then they could then go to a circuit judge and say they didn’t have the authority to put this on the ballot because their terms ended in June of 2017 and they didn’t put anything on, as a Commission, until June of 2018. So what I’m asking -- and this goes to talk about the Executive Director and really the timing of it -- on everything that we’re doing, that there’s some way -- and, you know, I hate to throw this in the lap of Sam, and maybe after the last discussion, probably you want to revisit the idea of even doing this. But we -- there’s got to be some way to clear this up, and the only thing that I could think of is to put this on the ballot through the County Commission in the next election, general election, which may be the presidential election, may be the November election in 2016. But we need to know, because -- MR. MCDONALD: Right. MR. DAVIS: -- all of us have been in this county a long time. MR. MCDONALD: Can I ask the County Attorney for his opinion, also? MR. DAVIS: Well, the County Attorney (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: I want to hear -- I want to hear -- I want to know what the County Attorney -- MS. GUNZBURGER: Maybe they got it first and maybe they have solved it so we could go beyond it. MR. DAVIS: Well, they -- there is a memo that was submitted by the County Attorney to the County Commission which says that we’re appointed until November -- apparently appointed, or their apparent intent was to appoint us until November of 2018. And I don’t disagree with what the County’s saying. However, I’m not a judge, and I’m not going to be the one that’s going to make that decision. So, to me, and no offense to Drew or to -- to Joni, or to anybody on the County Commission, to me, personally, what they have to tell me about this --


MR. MCDONALD: I would like to hear -- MR. DAVIS: -- doesn’t solve the issue. MR. MCDONALD: -- I would like to hear what their original opinion was. I can’t remember what it was. That’s why I wanted to ask Drew to give the opinion. MR. MEYERS: Yeah -- yes, sir. We have -- we believe there’s extraordinarily little risk here in -- in there being successful litigation that would in any way prevent what this board produces from being placed on the Charter unless somebody challenged it, substantively, not because of the term of your appointment, but saying that the substantive provision is invalid. That said, if you all believe that there’s any material risk -- we don’t, but if you believe that there is, this does have to be fixed at some point. It -- the -- it may be much easier language-wise to fix it just on a going forward basis and not worrying for this Charter review term. But if you do have concerns, it is something that could be considered by the County Commission to be placed on the ballot, I think either in August or in November of next year. It just has to go before the general electorate. MR. MCDONALD: Then so what you’re saying is there is a glitch in that law. We were going to have to do it anyway. There was going to be a two-year term. We’re going to have to address that because there was a -- the glitch in the last one. Well, Larry, we could take that as our first issue, put that, and that only, item on the next election. MR. MEYERS: Yeah, you can. MR. DAVIS: The -- the Commission -- we can’t do that. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MR. DAVIS: We can’t put anything on until the 2018 November election. The question really is whether or not we have to have our work done by June of 2017 or June of 2018. And I do agree with what you’re -- the County Commission can put on a question on the ballot, and it would be very easy language just to remove the language of the two years and then we could move forward. MR. MEYERS: Yes. I mean, it’s not quite that simple, because the two years would need to be reestablished for future CRC terms. So we don’t -- MR. SMITH: But we can do that. MR. MEYERS: -- but -- afterwards, you’re saying, at some point, fix it?


MR. SMITH: Yeah. MR. MEYERS: Now we’re just -- MR. SMITH: As part -- as part of the package we put forward, that -- MR. MEYERS: So -- so two -- two sets. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: I had -- Mr. DiPietro had his hand up, and then (inaudible). MR. DIPIETRO: Is there an option -- I guess this question’s for you, Drew -- so that Bill Scherer doesn’t sue us later on down the road. MR. DAVIS: It wasn’t that I was thinking of him, by the way. MR. DIPIETRO: Do we seek a declaratory judgment, and where we would voluntarily file suit on the County in a dec action for an interpretation on this issue and get a judgement from a -- from the circuit court? MR. MEYERS: I’m -- I’m not sure that there are two parties to -- someone to be on each side of the V here. I mean, if there were some private party that wanted to do that, certainly that could occur. We do know there clearly is a glitch. It should have said 2016, because everybody knows that general elections occur in even numbered years. So if the term is two years, your term has to also start in an even numbered year. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-huh. MR. MEYERS: It doesn’t say 2016. It says 2015. We -- we can’t just fix it by saying 2016, because then people would say what are you doing now. So -- and the two-step process works. The problem is then you have Charter language in the interim that may not make much sense. MR. MCDONALD: I have Kane and then I have Ms. Richards, and then Ms. Weeks. And then I’ll have to wait a little moment, my peripheral vision. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I was knocking over here. MR. MCDONALD: Kane. MR. KANE: Didn’t we just hire an outside firm? Why don’t we just leave that -- MS. GUNZBURGER: We haven’t come to terms yet.


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Huh? MS. GUNZBURGER: We have not signed an agreement. MR. KANE: You don’t need an agreement for a lawyer. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. KANE: There are a lot of lawyers with no agreements. MR. MEYERS: County doesn’t pay lawyers. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Ms. Weeks and Ms. Richards. MS. CEPERO: I think he was joking. MS. RICHARDS: Some of us were appointed by a Commissioner who’s going to be on the Board until 2018, and some are going out, like Mayor Kiar is going out in two years. Not all of us are going out. MS. GUNZBURGER: In -- in one year. MS. RICHARDS: So does this affect everybody or just some of us. MR. MCDONALD: The -- the appointment is -- MS. GUNZBURGER: The appointment’s for the term. MR. MCDONALD: -- for the term. MS. GUNZBURGER: For the term. MR. MCDONALD: Even if the Commissioner leaves -- MS. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: -- you’re still here the length of the term. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Yeah, I think -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- I think what Drew said, it’s probably very minimal risk of this being an issue. But I think once Sam comes on with a contract, maybe that’s the first order of business that he gives us an opinion on, and then we go forward based on that.


But I don’t see that this (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Collins and then Grant Smith. MR. FORMAN: I guess my question is have we checked the original language to make sure it wasn’t just a typo when it was put there? MR. MEYERS: It may very well have been a typo, but the -- it does say in the proposal and in the language that’s printed in the Charter, 2015. It should have been 2016. MR. MCDONALD: But didn’t it -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Could you go back to the original (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: What did the language say exactly? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The original referendum language? MR. MCDONALD: I thought it said two years, we’ll serve for -- until the next -- a two-year term before the next general election. MR. MEYERS: Yes, but it says -- because the language was changed to apply first to this Charter Review Commission, it actually has a beginning date, which is June of 2015, when it should have said June of 2016 and every ten years thereafter. So if we -- if it said, you know, a year ago, if we would have changed it to 2016, you wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have this issue, and you’d start next year. It says 2015. MR. MCDONALD: But then -- but then it says that it -- it’s -- MR. MEYERS: And then your term lasts -- and you serve for two years, and then it ends in the November -- I think on the Monday just before the general election, which is November of 2018. Well, I was -- I took a little math, but we all know ’15 to ’18’s three years, not two years. MS. GUNZBURGER: Right. MR. MEYERS: So we looked at the interpretation that would do the least damage and maximize the intention. I just -- I hadn’t thought of the funding issue that Larry raised. I mean, it’s an interesting issue. I couldn’t imagine a court keeping the substantive work of this board off the ballot. Courts are not in the business of disenfranchising folks because you’ve worked a little too hard. MR. MCDONALD: Could -- could we ask -- could we ask Mr. Goren to give us opinions at the next meeting?


MR. GOREN: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: Come back with an opinion on this? First assignment. We’ll pay you for it. MS. GUNZBURGER: Grant had a comment. MR. MCDONALD: All right. Grant. MR. SMITH: See, my biggest concern with this whole discussion is that Drew has an opinion. Sam’s firm is going to have an opinion. They may very well be the same. We don’t know yet. But it’s an opinion. We can continue to do our work and then do our work and somebody challenge it. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. MR. SMITH: And then we go into court waving these opinions, and the judge says, oh, that’s great. MR. MCDONALD: That’s why it’s not -- MR. SMITH: I haven’t finished. MR. MCDONALD: I understand that. MR. SMITH: Tom -- MR. MCDONALD: But that’s why I want Sam to give us a legal defense of what we should do. Should we ask for the declaratory -- MR. SMITH: Well, that -- that may be the case, but Sam just giving his opinion on how it reads isn’t going to help us, because it -- it’s not like going into an ethics hearing where you have a defense -- MR. MCDONALD: I -- MR. SMITH: -- this is what I was told to do. MR. MCDONALD: -- I want -- I want him to come back with a solution to make it defensible, whether it has to go on the ballot in ’17, or do we ask for declaratory judgment? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: -- ’16. What do you want to do? What do you -- do you have a


different -- do you want to do something different? MR. SMITH: No. I think -- all I’m saying is that if he gives an opinion that we can go forward -- MR. MCDONALD: I’m not asking for an opinion. I’m asking for how to make it defendable if he’s going to defend us in some suit. MR. SMITH: That’s fine. MR. MCDONALD: That’s -- MR. SMITH: Yeah. MR. MEYERS: Mr. Chair, I mean, you know, it’s a -- it’s an example of very little risk versus no risk. And if you want, it’s very easy for us to propose to the Board that it put something on in August. It’s not hard to do. We haven’t done that because we don’t like monkeying around with the Charter if you don’t have to, and we don’t believe you have to. But if there’s concern in this room that your good work could potentially be challenged or undone, it’s very easy to do. We can draft the language. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I think if that happens, you’re probably going to open to door for there to be other issues that may be placed on before we can actually do any work of our own, any real work of our own. And so (inaudible) while they have the authority, they may very well have ideas about what they want to put on the ballot in advance. I just think that if that -- if this comes us as something from us, just be prepared that there may be some other things that may be lobbied to go on, as well, and, you know, it may eat away at the work we might be doing. MR. MCDONALD: The -- they can -- they can put any item they want. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: They can, but it’s -- MR. MEYERS: Yes. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- it’s -- that hasn’t typically been the case. I mean, they normally -- I can’t say normally, but I think they will probably, knowing that a Charter Review Commission is sitting right now, I think they give us that deference. MR. MCDONALD: I think you’re -- you’re (inaudible). MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I mean, you know -- MR. MCDONALD: Larry.


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- I think once you open it up, and especially coming from us, I’m just saying, this is what we want to happen (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Larry. MR. DAVIS: David was first. I was after David. MR. DIPIETRO: Wouldn’t it -- but would there be res judicata? And I’m not speaking legal stuff, but there’s be a determination if we got a nominal citizen to file a lawsuit and the County didn’t oppose it, we get a judgment, and then someone comes out two years later, we can say, look, we already -- it’s already been judged, you weren’t -- you know, it’s already been adjudicated, and it can’t come back. Wouldn’t that be a safer way for -- for a very simple lawsuit, just one hearing, just to have that covered? MR. MEYERS: Well, it -- I think there is substantial, if not preclusive, effect and it’s a res judicata to that. However, we’re not in the business of courting -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Exactly. MR. MEYERS: -- plaintiffs to -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Courting plaintiffs. MR. MEYERS: -- to sue. We have enough folks lining up already that want to sue us. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Yeah, we can -- we can -- we can -- this is a very, very easy fix. But if somebody does sue us in the interim -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Do you want me to sue you? MR. MEYERS: No, I don’t. I’m not asking for that, but thank you. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Thank you for the kind offer. MR. MCDONALD: Sam, have you been listening to this? MR. GOREN: I’m listening to all of it. MR. MCDONALD: Could you -- could you come back to our next meeting and tell us what the best solution you think is to resolve this?


MR. GOREN: We’re aware of the issue. We’re aware of the issue in recent days and have already begun that research. I’m happy to provide our analysis and give you recommendations (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Larry? MR. FORMAN: Larry’s going to file a lawsuit. MR. DAVIS: No, Larry’s not going to file a lawsuit. But I just wanted to -- Tom, since I -- I was after David, anyway, I wanted to reiterate what Grant said, because I think we’re missing -- and I think David’s point touches on it somewhat, but I don’t think it -- I don’t think we’ll get there with that. I think the only way that we’re sure what our term is is if we put it on a general election. And I don’t know if that can be in August. Maybe it has to be in November of ’16. I’m not sure of that. Sam could (Inaudible) -- MR. MCDONALD: Can it -- can it be in the presidential primary in March? MR. DAVIS: No, I don’t think we can get it done quick enough. There’s 60 days for absentee ballots and things like that. MR. MEYERS: It -- it -- you can’t. It has to be before the general electorate, not in a general -- MR. SMITH: It says general election. MR. MEYERS: I think it says general electorate, but we can -- MS. GUNZBURGER: (Inaudible) the primary (inaudible). MR. MEYERS: I mean, if you look, there’s a history of Charter changes in the back of this order. Many of them were made at times other than (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Independents don’t vote. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. MR. DAVIS: But right. Exactly. So I don’t think -- I would think it would have to be -- I think probably -- it would probably be safer doing November, or we could even get another lawsuit. MS. GUNZBURGER: Well, besides that -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. GUNZBURGER: -- independents don’t vote in the primary.


MR. DAVIS: I know that. That’s why I’m saying November. That’s why I’m saying November. Can I continue on? MR. MCDONALD: I pretty much agree with you. If it ends up on the ballot, we’re going to have to go to court. MR. DAVIS: Right. Well, I don’t think going -- I mean, I don’t think going to court really -- you know, that’s a decision by a court. But getting the thing straightened out -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. MR. DAVIS: -- and let’s say it goes onto the Charter and they vote it down, which is possible, right; then we know we have to get everything done that we need to get done by June of 2017, which is a two year thing since we started, and probably we can get done what we need to get done. Unless we never get an Executive Director. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you. MR. DAVIS: But having said that, I think we need to get -- this needs to get cleared up, and not by an opinion by Sam or the County Attorney’s Office, or by, I don’t think, even a dec. I think it needs to be voted on. And I don’t understand Burnadette’s concern about putting more things on. I mean, this is an easy fix. You give them some language. You put it on as a housekeeping thing and I’m sure it’ll get approved. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. IZQUIERDO: Very quickly, I would just -- I would just recommend that maybe we just have all bases covered, and perhaps Drew’s office comes back with what they would propose to the County Commission while we have -- MR. DAVIS: Right. MR. IZQUIERDO: -- Sam’s firm do the research so that when we’re here next time, all of the options are on the table, and we can -- MR. MEYERS: Right. MR. IZQUIERDO: -- we can get one done or get one going in the right direction so that we’re not revisiting this for two or three years. MR. MCDONALD: Is that a -- that’s your motion? MR. IZQUIERDO: That’s my motion.


MR. FORMAN: Second. MR. MCDONALD: All those in favor -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I never get to second. MR. MCDONALD: Collins seconded. VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MS. CEPERO: Can I ask for clarification? I’m sorry. We were -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We were discussing -- MS. CEPERO: -- trying to figure out -- MR. IZQUIERDO: My motion was -- MS. CEPERO: -- all of this. MR. IZQUIERDO: -- was that – for, Drew, your office to come back with what you would -- what you would give the County, and, at the same time, have Mr. Goren’s office do their research with possible risks, and how we can resolve the problem. MR. MEYERS: Good. MR. IZQUIERDO: Bring it all back for the next meeting so we can get it done. MR. MEYERS: Thank you. MR. DAVIS: And we voted on that. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: All right. MR. MEYERS: Thank you. MR. MCDONALD: Is there any other -- and we have to discuss our next meeting. MR. FORMAN: Chair? MR. MCDONALD: Yes. MR. FORMAN: What about the minutes from the last meeting?


MR. MCDONALD: What about them? MR. FORMAN: Do we need to approve them? MR. MCDONALD: Oh. MS. GUNZBURGER: It wasn’t on the agenda. MR. FORMAN: I move we approve the minutes from the last meeting. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Second. MR. KANE: Second. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I don’t think we can, because it wasn’t on the agenda. MR. MCDONALD: Are you allowed to approve minutes that weren’t on the agenda? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It’s a housekeeping matter. MR. MEYERS: I -- you know what? It’s probably, you know -- you probably have the inherent power to do that. If they were emailed out, they were sent to everybody, they didn’t make the official agenda. Do you need to approve them now, or can you approve two sets at the next meeting? MR. MCDONALD: We can approve two sets at the next meeting. MR. MEYERS: No, did not approve the minutes -- MS. CEPERO: All right. MR. MEYERS: -- will do at the next meeting. MR. MCDONALD: All right. Other business? MR. FORMAN: Mr. Chairman? MR. MCDONALD: Yeah. MR. FORMAN: I keep getting emails to my prior email account. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. FORMAN: What’s the deal with that? Thought we weren’t doing that.


MR. MCDONALD: Ms. Cepero. MS. CEPERO: What I wanted to comment on, I’ve had a number of members of this Commission ask for notification and duplicate information to all of their private emails, just because they were having trouble or having access issues with their County email -- MR. MCDONALD: Or they don’t think of checking their County email every day. MS. CEPERO: To accommodate a large majority of this body, we have been sending them to both. MS. GUNZBURGER: We appreciate it. MS. CEPERO: So if there are people that do not want them in a certain place, please let me know. We can talk afterwards and let me know. We were just trying to accommodate the majority of this group to make sure everyone’s being noticed. But all official business needs to be conducted on the County email. It was just a courtesy just to make sure you were getting stuff. MR. MCDONALD: Drew. MR. MEYERS: Please reply from your official email. It’s just a -- as Monica said, a courtesy notification to your personal email, but please don’t use your personal email exclusively as a reply. If you end up using it inadvertently, please forward a copy of that to your County email box. We just want to try to, you know, save you from having people look into your personal emails, scanning for public records. MS. CEPERO: And as a reminder, obviously, only reply back to the sender, which would be myself or my assistant Arlene. Additionally, I wanted to let everybody know we’ve been working on the Charter Commission’s website, and, as of this morning, I think all of the documents that you have been emailed are up on the website. So if you're having trouble with downloading the size of the documents or what have you, it should all be on the website, so you can just go to broward.org -- I always get it wrong -- forward or backslash, the one that leans towards the next word, and then Charter. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Slash. MS. CEPERO: No, but it’s -- MR. MEYERS: Forward. MS. CEPERO: -- forward slash --


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Forward slash. MS. CEPERO: -- charter. And that is your Charter Commission’s website, and that should have everything by date of the meetings and the documents. MR. MCDONALD: How -- Ms. Leto, how soon do you think we can have a meeting to short list the Executive Director? MS. LETO: When is our next meeting going to be? MR. MCDONALD: Well, it will be in January, but we -- can we do that before Christmas and -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MS. LETO: It depends on everybody that -- MR. MCDONALD: For the short list? MR. IZQUIERDO: I’m available. MR. MCDONALD: I’m available. Who else is -- MR. DAVIS: Oh, you mean meet with her? MR. MCDONALD: I mean, would it be possible to meet possibly next week -- MS. LETO: No. MR. MCDONALD: -- to short list? Not next week? You’re not here next week? MS. LETO: I’m gone until Tuesday, and then I don’t come back until late Tuesday night, and then I have a personal issue that I have to take care of. MR. IZQUIERDO: Tuesday, what Tuesday? MS. LETO: What’s the date next Tuesday? MR. IZQUIERDO: Next Tuesday’s the 15th. MS. GUNZBURGER: Next Tuesday’s the 15th. MS. LETO: I get back that night. MR. IZQUIERDO: I don’t know what the rest of the committee’s availability is, but I’m


available from here on. MS. LETO: Okay. What about the 16th in the morning? MS. GUNZBURGER: I can’t. I can do the 17th. MS. LETO: I can’t. My mom’s having surgery that day. MS. GUNZBURGER: I have a class in the morning on Wednesday. MS. LETO: What about the afternoon? Early? MS. CEPERO: I -- I can try to coordinate. We can try to coordinate that so we’re not taking the time of the whole Commission. MR. MCDONALD: Well, the reason I’m asking that is because I don’t -- I want to schedule the meeting in January. MS. LETO: I know you do, Tom, but I can’t tell my mother -- MS. CEPERO: Mr. Chair, just to -- MS. GUNZBURGER: I can do -- I can do 2:00 o’clock on the -- on Wednesday, as far as I know, unless I’ve left something off. MR. MCDONALD: I can do it then. MR. IZQUIERDO: I have depositions at 3:00. That’s the one day, the one hour that’s locked. MS. GUNZBURGER: Okay. Never mind. MS. LETO: Let me ask you a question. If the majority of the committee can do it on the 16th in the morning, is that acceptable? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We should all be there. MS. GUNZBURGER: I really would like to be there, though, Marilyn. MS. LETO: Okay. Then we have to pick a different date. MR. MCDONALD: Marilyn, you’re not available on the 17th or the 18th? MS. GUNZBURGER: Not if her mother’s having surgery.


MS. LETO: My mom’s having surgery on the 17th. MR. MCDONALD: How about the 21st? MS. LETO: 21st is fine. MR. IZQUIERDO: 21st works. MS. GUNZBURGER: The 21st works. MR. MCDONALD: It works for me. MS. LETO: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. What time -- what time would you prefer? MR. IZQUIERDO: I’m open all day. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I have the whole day open. MS. LETO: Morning. MS. GUNZBURGER: 10:00 o’clock? MR. IZQUIERDO: 10:00 o’clock? MR. MCDONALD: Might you find a room for us 10:00 o’clock on Monday, the 21st? And if you’ll notify Commissioner Mosely also. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Okay. So that -- yes. MS. CEPERO: Mr. Chair, I will -- just as a point of reference, I will email to the subcommittee members -- I know three of you have already received it, but I will email to the full five subcommittee members all 40, or do you want only the 25? MS. GUNZBURGER: There are six. Because there’s one, two, Roz, Jose, you, and me. That’s six. MS. CEPERO: There was three original members and two were added today. MR. MCDONALD: Three original members and we added two today. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did Roz ask to be on -- put on that?


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. MS. GUNZBURGER: She just said that she was coming to the meeting. MS. CEPERO: It was not part of the vote and on the record, but you can add, you can re-- (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Will somebody make a motion to add Ms. Greenberg to the -- MS. NAVARRO: So moved. MR. MCDONALD: -- to the subcommittee? MS. GUNZBURGER: Second. MR. MCDONALD: All those in favor of adding Ms. Greenberg to the committee, raise your hand, please. Any opposed? MS. GUNZBURGER: Collins, you want to oppose? VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MR. MCDONALD: And Ms. Cepero will get back with everybody -- and you’ll get everybody -- Monica, you’ll send everybody the 23 or 24 resumes? MS. CEPERO: Yes. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. MS. GUNZBURGER: Could -- could we get them, because we’re meeting on the 21st -- MS. CEPERO: I will get them to you by tomorrow, if not today. MS. GUNZBURGER: -- and could we have a backup copy by snail mail? MS. CEPERO: There’s a lot of paper. MS. GUNZBURGER: Oh. Never mind. MS. LETO: It’s a lot of paper. MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Now, Monica, you have some -- some problems with our room in the other building?


MS. CEPERO: We are desperately trying to resolve space issues with set meetings on given days, just given the amount of meetings that have already -- have set calendar dates that take up Room 430 in our government building for your space and that have the ability for recording and webcasting and all of that for sunshine requirements. So I was just speaking with the Chair about you guys had established that you wanted to meet the second Wednesday of every month. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MS. CEPERO: That’s what was in the minutes from the October 17th retreat. You can certainly decide to do differently, but that was what was decided. MR. MCDONALD: We are -- we are currently scheduled right now -- we didn’t -- I think we didn’t vote on it; I’ll check the minutes -- on the second Wednesday -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: -- of the month. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: And it was very difficult to get to that. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: I don’t really want to change it now. Katherine, can we -- you can’t make (inaudible). UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Yeah, I don’t think we need the lunch. MS. GUNZBURGER: No. MS. CEPERO: That would help with the budget. MS. GUNZBURGER: I don’t think it’s -- MR. MCDONALD: I think we made the -- I think we -- MS. GUNZBURGER: I think we should be a little conservative with -- with taxpayers’ dollars. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, let’s meet earlier then.


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Well, the reason we’re meeting at 1:30 is if somebody had a lunch meeting at 12:00, they could get here by 1:30. MS. GUNZBURGER: Some of us like to eat lunch. MR. MCDONALD: I like to eat lunch. I just don’t want the County to pay for it. MR. FORMAN: How much was lunch? MS. CEPERO: I don’t know off-the-top-of-my-head. MR. FORMAN: I have one other question. When can you get us our packages for the meeting? MS. CEPERO: Get what? I’m sorry. MR. FORMAN: When can you get us our packages for the meeting, because -- MR. MCDONALD: Shh. MR. FORMAN: -- I remember at the October retreat -- as a matter of fact, I remember a couple of weeks ago I got an email saying we’re supposed to have the stuff on the 2nd, and then I didn’t get mine until I’m going to say Friday afternoon. MS. CEPERO: Friday afternoon, the emails went out with the 12 documents that were attached, on, I believe, December 9th. For some reason, that day is sticking in my head. Then the email was sent out saying that there would be -- the packet would be sent out a week before. We were unable to get it all out because of the documents, the -- the full 12 documents weren’t all ready. MR. FORMAN: Okay. MS. CEPERO: And we also had a number of the last Commission meeting and all of that that was -- MR. FORMAN: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: So we have coming up -- MS. CEPERO: -- (inaudible) coordinate. MR. MCDONALD: -- we have the short list committee for the Executive Director is on the 21st. We’re going to meet on January the 13th. Do you want to -- how do you want


to do it, Ms. Weeks? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: I was thinking maybe 10:00 o’clock. I mean, I don’t know. MS. GUNZBURGER: No, that’s Wednesday. That’s -- I have a conflict. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Monica, you raised your hand. MS. CEPERO: Yeah, I was just going to say we can certainly use this room, and with not having a full complement of, you know, legal counsel coming in, it will be a lot less crowded, I would imagine. But we can certainly use this space. I -- we were just trying to accommodate to give more space, as well as the webcasting capabilities that has been basically suggested that’s part of the sunshine. MR. MCDONALD: There’s -- we -- we talked also, does Room 302 have webcast? MS. CEPERO: It does. Those are the two rooms in the government building -- MR. MCDONALD: So maybe you could check the date. MS. CEPERO: -- that has webcast. MR. MCDONALD: Room 302 -- two rooms be put together. MS. CEPERO: We’ve been working on that, as well, and there’s a number of meetings that are standing meetings there, as well. So we’re trying so see if -- who can move out and -- and we’re working on the logistics. MR. MCDONALD: The problem is on that second Wednesday, juvenile justice is it -- MS. CEPERO: In 430, yes. MR. MCDONALD: -- has the bigger room, 430 on the second Wednesday also. MS. GUNZBURGER: What about the -- the main chambers? Would that work? MR. MCDONALD: With 19 people? MS. GUNZBURGER: Well, no, we can’t sit around the top, and -- and there’s no -- MR. MCDONALD: We’ll let -- we’ll let our County staff come up with the rooms. So we need to negotiate Sam’s contract by that next meeting. We need to short list the Executive Director and be ready.


MR. GRANT: No, no. I don’t think you need to negotiate his contract. You need to have it done and potentially get it to the Commission before the next meeting. MS. CEPERO: That would be -- MS. GUNZBURGER: That would be -- MS. CEPERO: -- January 5th is the next County Commission meeting. MR. SMITH: There you go. If the County Attorney’s Office decides that it needs to go to the County Commission, then you have to have it by January 4th. MR. MCDONALD: I don’t think you’re going to get -- I don’t think you’re going to get it to them by the 4th. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Uh-uh. MR. MCDONALD: First off, you’ve got to have it to the -- to put it on the agenda, you’ve got to have it -- MS. CEPERO: It’s printed -- the -- the agenda for the County Commission’s meeting on the 5th will be printed by December 30th. MR. SMITH: Okay. So we can negotiate a contract with them. MR. GOREN: My recollection, and it could be vague at this point, I think that the contract last time was with the CRC. So it was not -- MR. MCDONALD: Drew, you going to research that for us? MR. MEYERS: Yeah, we’ll -- we’ll take a look at it. And I know that the -- MR. MCDONALD: I think there was a sample contract in there, wasn’t there? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: There is a sample contract in our - UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Don’t trust that. MR. MEYERS: We’ll take a look at it, but there -- there are budget -- budget reasons for this, as well, but we’ll take a look at it. MS. LETO: Didn’t we at one point discuss rotating the location of the meetings?


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We did. MR. KANE: Yeah, but they rejected Los Angeles. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It was Las Vegas. MR. MCDONALD: We’re having a hard time coming up with a room. MS. LETO: Yeah, but if we go outside. MR. MCDONALD: In the future, when we have public hearings -- by the way, somebody -- Monica, didn’t somebody want to -- didn’t we want to address people that wanted to speak to us? Your point is, Marilyn, is that if we’re going to have public input, we may want to rotate places. MR. DAVIS: The committees -- the committees, I thought the committees would meet in different areas of the community (inaudible). MS. GUNZBURGER: We’re going to meet in your office, Larry. MR. MCDONALD: Monica, did somebody request to speak to us? MS. CEPERO: I’ve had a couple of just questions of if there was going to be public comment received by this body, and I -- that’s the only question I have for you, is if that is the will of this Commission, if you wanted to put that for future meetings, either on every meeting, set a set time, or every other meeting, or once -- whatever. MR. MCDONALD: Let’s get the Executive Director and the lawyer. And Mr. Davis talked about he’d like to have another retreat, if possible. MR. DAVIS: I would, because I’d like to get to the -- talk about some of the meat of what we’re going to do as far as this committee’s concerned -- Commission’s concerned regarding which areas of the County government we’re going to look at. MR. MCDONALD: But the problem I’m finding, with 19 people, everybody nit picks everything. MR. DAVIS: We’ve got a lot of lawyers, here. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: And I know that me and Sue don’t want lunch, but I think that we should take a poll, if we could. MR. MCDONALD: But, you know, I don’t want to sit here for an hour waiting to start the meeting.


MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: We shouldn’t do that. We didn’t do that before. We can bring our lunch in and eat while we’re talking. MS. GUNZBURGER: Bring our own lunch in. MR. MCDONALD: Drew? MR. MEYERS: Not yet. MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: You guys didn’t even do that as County Commissioners for your conferences. MR. MCDONALD: Drew, were you -- MR. MEYERS: No, no. I’m -- I’m fine. I think I understand what Burnadette said. Whenever I hear about a group getting together and having lunch (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: No, no, she wants to start the meeting, eat the lunch like we did at the retreat, during the meeting. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MEYERS: Okay. MR. MCDONALD: Not kill an hour -- MR. MEYERS: So start -- start -- start the meeting and actually (inaudible). MR. MCDONALD: Start the meeting earlier. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Go and get your lunch -- MR. MCDONALD: What time would you suggest, Ms. Weeks? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well, we have a time. 1:30. We start at 1:30; right? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Isn’t that our time? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.


MR. MCDONALD: Is that when you want lunch, at 1:30? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: At 1:30. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.) MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Staff doesn’t have to kill an hour before. MR. KANE: Are we going to get dinner, too? MS. GUNZBURGER: So we’re going to have the County spend money on our food. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MS. GUNZBURGER: It’s your taxes. MR. FORMAN: Yeah, I don’t -- I’d like to know how much it costs. Maybe it’s not a lot. I mean, I don’t need the committee to buy my lunch for me. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. MR. FORMAN: And I don’t think anybody here does. But it might be more convenient, and it might allow for a more prompt start and some of those things, so -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: Well, I look at it like we’re killing basically a half a day, and so that -- for me, you know, I’m thinking if I’m leaving -- I’m doing -- working in the morning, I’m probably going to not take lunch -- MR. MCDONALD: Okay. Let’s -- MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: -- and I run here and -- MR. MCDONALD: -- let’s try it next month at 1:30. The County will provide lunch. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll start the meeting promptly at 1:30? MS. NORRIS-WEEKS: The County Commissions do it. MR. MCDONALD: You can come a few minutes early and eat your lunch. MS. CEPERO: Point of clarification. The only time that the Commission is given lunch is when they work -- they have a morning meeting at 10:00, then they go right into a workshop, and then they have a Public Hearing at 2:00, so they wouldn’t have a break from 10:00 a.m. until about 4:00 or 5:00 or later, it depends on the schedule. MS. GUNZBURGER: It isn’t a regular thing at the County.


MR. IZQUIERDO: If we’re coming at -- I mean, I ate before I came today. So if we’re doing it at 1:30, I would prefer not to spend any money. And if I need my lunch, I’ll bring my lunch, too. MS. LETO: I’ll second that. MS. GUNZBURGER: I’ll third it. MR. MCDONALD: So your motion’s what? MR. IZQUIERDO: No lunch. MR. MCDONALD: No lunch. Start at 1:30. MR. IZQUIERDO: You want lunch, you bring lunch. MR. MCDONALD: And then you were seconded by Marilyn? MR. IZQUIERDO: We’ll leave it at 1:30. MS. GUNZBURGER: Yeah. MR. MCDONALD: All right. All those in favor of not buying lunch, starting the meeting at 1:30, raise your hand. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: (Inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: Okay. You better count them. MR. MEYER: Yeah, let’s count. MR. MCDONALD: Raise your hands if you -- one, two, three -- four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. So it’s -- MR. MEYERS: You have (inaudible.) MR. MCDONALD: -- 12 voted no lunch. VOTE PASSES 12 TO 6 MS. NAVARRO: Mr. Chair, I just wanted to clarify -- MR. MCDONALD: Ms. Navarro’s got the floor. Or we’re never going to get out of here.


MS. NAVARRO: I just wanted to clarify the sequence of events with respect to the establishing of rules and going forward with perhaps another retreat opportunity to consolidate a direction. And that is that we would make sure that we have our Executive Director in place, that we have our legal counsel in place, that we then have our legal counsel assist us in creating the rules of order for our collegial unit, as they put it, and then, from that point on, with those pillars, then we would proceed to another retreat. I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on the -- MR. DAVIS: Is that a motion? MS. NAVARRO: It is a motion. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sounds like a great motion. MR. DAVIS: I’ll second that. MR. MCDONALD: Seconded by Mr. Davis. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY. MR. DAVIS: Do you want to pick a date? MR. MCDONALD: All right. Any other matters? MR. DAVIS: You want to pick a date for a retreat? MR. MCDONALD: No, we (inaudible). MS. CEPERO: Just for clarification, I thought -- was the motion not -- to not have the retreat until you got the -- Executive Director. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right. MR. DAVIS: Until we get the Executive Director and the attorney on board. MS. NAVARRO: And the -- and the rules in place. MR. MCDONALD: And the rules in place. MS. NAVARRO: And rules in place. MR. MCDONALD: Right. MS. GUNZBURGER: Okay. We’re adjourned?


MR. MCDONALD: Seeing no other questions, the meeting’s adjourned. (The meeting concluded at 3:29 p.m.)

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CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION MEETING December 9… Review-law… · Katherine Richards ... The law firm, as you know from the resume, ... Charter Review Commission Meeting December 9,