High Leia Council meeting of February 3rd. I now officially call this meeting to order at 5:33 p.m. >> Madame Clerk, please call the role. >> Miss LaGa, >> present. >> Miss M. Perez is absent. Mr. Rodriguez, >> present. >> Miss G. Perez. Mr. Zagi, >> present. >> Mr. Morero, >> present. >> Mr. Gonzalez, >> present. Mr. President, you have enough members to conduct business. >> Thank you. Madame Clerk, can you please uh lead us in the invocation? >> Lord, we pray for your guidance and direction and benefit of those who live and work in the city of Hyia. Amen. >> Thank you. And the pledge of allegiance will be led by our council vice president Melinda de la. All rise. >> And on your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> May be seated. Thank you. >> Madame clerk, can you read the uh meeting guidelines? >> All lobbyists must register with the city clerk. As a courtesy to others, please refrain from using cellular telephones or other similar electronic devices in the council chamber. A maximum of three speakers in favor and three speakers in opposition will be allowed to address the council on any one item. Each speaker's comments will be limited to three minutes. No signs or plaque cards in support of or in opposition to an item or speaker shall be permitted within the council chamber. Any person whether participating via the web platform, telephonic conferencing or physical presence at city hall interested in making comments or posing questions on matters of public concern or on any item on the agenda may do so during the meeting. Members of the public may address the city council on any item pertaining to city business during the comments and questions portion of the meeting. A member of the public is limited to one appearance before the city council and the speaker's comments will be limited to three minutes. Individuals should be respectful of the elected officials and staff and make every effort to speak with a moderate tone using appropriate language and avoiding personal attacks. Members of the public in the audience shall reframe from shouting or making remarks from their seats to the mayor, council members or staff sitting on the deis. The public can view public meetings on the city's YouTube page. >> Thank you. Uh six presentations. Do we have any presentations, madam cler? >> No, sir. >> Thank you. Let's move on to comments and questions. Has anybody uh signed up? >> Marto, >> thank you. Marian. Okay. Okay. Courtyard of Hay. Gracias. My concern is that we have as they have asked us to make a payment. There's six buildings and 132 apartments. And we have asked for a meeting and the meeting has not been completed. First we had management one um and no one has yet to comply with the concern with the meeting. We know that the associations have a lot of concerns. We have knocked on a lot of doors. We have come to the city. We have spoken to everyone in our power. [clears throat] We have done everything in our power and now they have placed on Yes, we have taken a long time with the situation. Okay, we need help with the situation. The minority of the people that live in this building are retired. Okay. I was on the board and I left the board. Did you want to say something? You want me to tell her? Okay. Jose. Okay. Perfecto. Thank you. Any other u madame clerk? Any other >> No, sir. No further registered speakers. >> Thank you. Anybody from the audience comments or questions from anybody present here today? >> No comments. Uh number eight, Madame Clerk, announcements and amendments and corrections to the agenda. >> The following items have been added to today's agenda. Board appointment items 9A, 9B, and 9 C. Consent items 10F, and 10G, and administrative item 11A. >> Thank you. Uh item nine, board and committee appointments. Madame Clerk, >> proposed resolution appointing Abdel Himemenz to the board of commissioners of Halia Housing Authority of the city of Halia, Florida for a 4-year term beginning on February 3rd, 2026 and ending on February 2nd, 2030. >> Mayor, >> thank you. >> Yeah, Dell's right here. I think many of you already know him. He's an attorney and he served in planning and zoning for many years and uh now he's willing to step up and do this unpaid uh labor of love. So, thank you. Thank you for volunteering. >> Do you work unpaid in your law firm too? >> Almost. Almost. A uh pleasure of the council for the appointment of motion from Councilman Lewis Gonzalez and second from Councilwoman Jayen uh Perez. Please call the role. >> Mr. Maro, >> yes. >> Miss Perez. >> Miss G. Perez? >> Yes. >> Mr. LaGa? >> Yes. >> Mr. Rodriguez? >> Yes. >> Mr. Zagnney? >> Yes. >> Mr. Gonzalez. >> Motion carries. The item is approved. >> Thank you. Congratulations, Mr. Himenez Abdell. Thank you. Uh item B, Madame Cliff, >> proposed resolution pursuant to the city charter and court of ordinances appointing Luis Gonzalez as a member of the oversight committee for the city of Halia elected officers retirement trust for a two-year term commencing on the effective date of this resolution. >> Mayor, would you like to I have a motion from Lewis Rodriguez because he's hungry. Mayor, would you like to before I call I wait for this? >> So, this is this is one of these cleanup items. Um, you know, it came to my attention that, you know, this is a board composed of three individuals. One of them was not attending the meetings and so uh you know, we want to make sure that we have full attendance. Uh, obviously it's a very limited pool of members that that are eligible because you have to be part of the elected um officers retirement trust. So, um, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Well, not yet. Not yet. We have to call the role. So we have a motion from Councilman Lewis Rodriguez for the appointment of Luis Gonzalez, the retirement for second from Councilman William Maro. Please call the role. >> Miss G. Perez, >> Miss Dea, >> yes. >> Mr. Rodriguez, >> yes. >> Mr. Zagy, >> yes. >> Mr. Gonzalez, >> yes. >> Mr. Morero, >> yes. >> Motion carries. The item is approved. >> Thank you. So, we move right to consent agenda, right? >> No, we're missing one. >> [laughter] >> Item 9 C please Madame Cler >> request permission to approve the appointment of Jose Torres in chief of staff to the city of highly insurance committee. >> Uh yeah just for I guess uh more information basically uh kind of similar we had a lot of vacancies um with prior administration. So we're filling those vacancies as well. >> Are these all paid positions mayor? >> Totally unpaid additional collateral duties >> collateral duties. I love that. Um, pleasure of the council for the appointment of Jose Torres. >> Motion from councilwoman Jayen Perez. >> Second. >> Second from council vice president Melinda Dega. Please call the role. >> Miss de la. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rodriguez. >> Yes. >> Mr. Zagi. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gonzalez. >> Yes. >> Mr. Morero. >> Yes. >> Miss G. Perez. >> Motion carries. The item is approved. >> Thank you, Madam Clerk. Uh, item 10 is consent agenda. Does anyone on the dis wish to pull any of the items in the consent agenda portion? >> This also allows for any member who may have a vested interest to pull any item from the consent agenda. No one. >> Uh motion to approve the entire consent agenda. Lewis by Councilman Lewis Gonzalez. >> Second. >> Second. Eeny meenie William Morero second by Councilman William Morero. Please call the role. >> Mr. Rodriguez. >> Yes. >> Mr. Zagby. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gonzalez. >> Mr. Morero. >> Yes. >> Miss G. Perez. Yes. >> M. Dea. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. The consent agenda has passed. >> Thank you, Madame Clerk. Um, administrative item 11A. Madame clerk. >> Proposed ordinance amending chapter 2 entitled administration article 2 departments, offices, and divisions. Division 7, Human Resources Department. Division 8, Finance Management Department. Division 9, Grants and Human Services. Division 10, Community Development Department. Division 13, Parks and Community Engagement Department. Division 17, Risk Management Department. Division 19, Department of Public Libraries of the Court of the City of Hyia. specifically by collapsing the risk management department into the human resources department as a division and renaming the human resources director to chief human resources officer. Renaming the executive director of finance management to chief financial officer. Collapsing the department of public libraries into the parks and community engagement department as a division. Creating a special events department. collapsing the grants and human services department within the community develop development department as a division providing for severability clause repealing all ordinances in conflict here with and providing for an effective deed >> thank you how many times did you say department >> quite a few >> um Mr. Mayor, please. >> Um, so everyone understands what we're doing here. Basically, we are cleaning up, I think, a lot of stuff uh that should have been done a long time ago, consolidating some things, trying to be a more efficient government. Um, one of the biggest concerns that I've seen in the past few weeks is that, you know, I have a very high number of direct reports. So, up to 27 uh direct reports if you count division heads. Um, and obviously what this is creating is it bottlenecks my time. Um so what I've done is I've standardized created the chief financial officer position uh and basically that position will cover three departments which is budget purchasing um and finance. I've also created a a CHRO position basically consolidating three departments which is HR, risk and retirement all under that umbrella. And then in terms of the parks uh parks and recreation um department I put now library under there which is something that was done a long time ago and then it was switched out. Um so again the the idea is to kind of funnel some of these uh department divisions well they'll be called divisions now into uh a less number of department heads. So that's in a nutshell what we're doing here. We're stream streamlining the um the management of of of you know the city hierarchy, right? I think right now it's very convoluted. Uh and so we're streamline streamlining that for efficiency purposes. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sure. >> Pleasure of the council. >> Motion. >> Motion from Councilman Lewis Rodriguez. Second from Councilman Councilwoman Jayen Perez. Chivalry is not dead. Call the role, please. Thank you, >> Mr. Rodriguez. Yes, >> Mr. Zagi. >> Yes, >> Mr. Gonzalez. >> Mr. Morero. >> Yes, >> Miss Chief Perez. >> Movea. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. The item is approved. Second reading and public hearing is scheduled for February 24th, 2026. >> Item 12, unfinished business. Madam clerk, do we have anything on >> No, sir. >> Late. Anyone >> on the dis unfinished business? Uh, item 13, new business. So, I'll I'll take a crack at new business. Um, we we'll be releasing a public uh service announcement in the next few days. Um, but essentially, we are have a lot of vacancies in many of our boards, including cultural affairs, uh, including historic preservation where we have no one um, we have vacancies uh, throughout. So, we're going to be publishing basically what we're looking for. And, you know, I'd request, you know, the council to help us out. And if you can identify people that you think would merit serving on these boards, obviously, you know, it's unpaid, so it's not the most glamorous thing, but um you do it because of service. So, uh you know, we also have vacancies in veteran affairs. We were trying to make sure our our youth advisory board is is up and running the best it can be. So, um we're trying to fill a lot of these boards. And then I I also signed uh you know earlier or I'm basically in the process of signing the um uh the the faith advisory board. So we're getting that also up and running. And um you know I'd like to see you know maybe this is a discussion we can have later but um so everybody understands in the county it's very common for there to be subcommittees for the council. So each council member kind of picks up uh a project if you will and kind of runs with it. And so I think that that's something that would be very helpful because there's so many things going on at the same time. So if you know somebody's interested in maybe leading a specific I know some of you already spoke to me, but as we're kind of creating these these task force or these committees or you know whatever they're called um you know it's it's helpful to us to understand who wants to do what uh so we can you know get these things up and running as soon as possible. That's our goal. >> All right. >> Thank you, sir. >> Is that it? Does anyone else on on the dis have any new business or anything they'd like to discuss? >> No. No. >> That's a great idea. >> Is it okay if we adjourn the meeting? >> The meeting, the city of Haley Council meeting of February 3rd is hereby officially adjourned. 5:50 p.m.