Sustainability & Resiliency Advisory Board

Monday, January 24, 2022 * 6:30 p.m. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL - Administration Carole Morris called meeting to order at 6:45pm NEW BUSINESS 1. Appointment of Chair/Vice Chair Carole Morris: First order of business is to appoint and chair and vice chair. If you want a brief introduction before selecting chairs. Joel Feingold: Can we rotate chair? After each of us have chaired a meeting and we have gotten to know each other than we will make a selection. Carole Morris: Yes, the only challenge we need to establish a rotation so that each members are here at the next meeting. We need a temporary chair for this meeting. April when you put out the next agenda if you could enclose a list of of whose chairing the next meetings so they can be present. If there is a conflict please reach out to myself or the City Clerk office. Joel Feingold: Does anyone have an objection to that? Board members speaking at once in agreement with the rotating chairs. ***inaudible SUSTAINABILITY & RESILIENCY ADVISORY BOARD COUNCIL CHAMBERS 400 NW 73RD AVE. PLANTATION, FL 33317 MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2022 Organizational Meeting Present: Dr. Julie A Long, Dr. Mary Hope Schwoebel, Guithese Ruiz-Nicholas, Joel Feingold, Maria Oliva, Carole Morris Absent: Nicholas C Hessing

Carole Morris: So we are going to do a rotating chair for the next 5 to 6 months and Mr. Feingold has been nominated to serve a chair for this evening. 2. Determination of Board Meeting Dates and Times Carole Morris: We need to discuss the next meeting date and time and what you regular meeting day will become. Does anyone have a suggestion? April Beggerow: The original suggestion was the second Monday of the month. Carole Morris: Does the second Monday of the month at 6:30pm, work for everybody? Board member: Agreed Carole Morris: 2nd Monday of the month at 6:30pm. 3. Presentation by the City Attorney: Sunshine Law Carole Morris introduced Kerry Ezrol to the Sustainability board. Kerry Ezrol gave a presentation on the Sunshine Law. City Attorney: My name is Kerry Ezrol, I am a shareholder with the law firm Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol and we had the pleasure of serving as the City Attorney for the City of Plantation for 3 years. I am also a Plantation resident for 29 years. Board member requested clarification: Inaudible question regarding the Sunshine Law City Attorney: I am not the one who polices Sunshine Law violations. The state attorney polices Sunshine law violations. The commission on ethics polices Sunshine law violations. If the state attorney is knocking at your door, or inviting you to come in and speak to them or send you a letter stating you violated the Sunshine Law even though it was unintentional. We will resolve the matter for a fee of $500. Board member requested clarification: Inaudible Carole Morris: Just a housekeeping matter, in front of you under your microphones is a button and a green light. When you are speaking, please make sure the green light is on. You have viewers on zoom, we are recording these meetings and we will not get your comments if the green light is not on. Thank you. Joel Feingold: Just to clarify, I don’t want to violate the Sunshine Law. But I know that we volunteered and applied to service this board because we have an interest in this subject matter. I am trying to have a good understanding so we can do the best job that we can and not violate any laws and cost our city $500. City Attorney: The city wouldn’t be paying that. The question that you asked, it analysis on whether or not something constitute a Sunshine Law violation is fact specific. If you think it is something you are going to vote on you should not be

discussing it. Did I answer your question? Joel Feingold: I think your explanation is a very good way to look at it and helpful. City Attorney: If it is reasonably foreseeable that it will come before you for discussion and action, you should avoid discussing it outside of the Sunshine. Joel Feingold: Would you suggest we establish an email account which would be used for the advisory board separate from our personal email account? City Attorney: Yes, I would suggest you separate the business of this board from your personal. If you are using a laptop, iPad or computer, I suggest you have a separate folder for everything that you are doing as it pertains to the official business of this board. When see an email that is circulating among board members. That is a red flag, it doesn’t mean that a Sunshine Law violation occurred, it’s just a red flag. It could lead to the possibly that there is going to be an exchange by email among board members about something that may foreseeably come before them. It is not a best practice to be involved with. You may want to share information amongst the board members before a meeting, my suggestion and the safest thing to do is to share it at the meeting. Alternatively, you can ask Carole or the city clerk to share with the board in advance of something. But there should not be any discussion in advance of the board meeting. Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: As a member of this board, how much of our information is exempt from public records? Like the telephone number, emails, and home address. City Attorney: Email addresses and telephone numbers that you provide to the city are not exempt. Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: What about our addresses? City Attorney: Not exempt. For example, my information my addresses and phone numbers are public record. There is a bill being introduced this year to exempt information of government attorneys. There are exemptions for fire fighters, police officers, code enforcement but it has to be a specific exemption. Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: If you are exemption if that category, how does that impact our records? City Attorney: Do you mean if you are otherwise exempt? Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: Yes City Attorney: That’s a good question I will research that, but I would think if you are otherwise exempt, you will be exempt. My suggestion would be to avoid any issues

with that, you put the city clerk on notice that you are claiming the exemption. In the future if a request is made, they would think twice before providing that information. Joel Feingold: Could you elaborate a little more on a letter to the editor that a member might submit? City Attorney: A letter to the editor? I’m unsure how or why that would be considered a public record, but I would have to see it first to know what it was. Is it something that’s going to be circulating amongst the board members? Is there going to be a discussion about it? Or was it just one board member writing a letter to the editor and that was the end of it? As far as the Sunshine Law situation, in order for there to be a violation of the Sunshine Law, there has to be a two-way communication. If there were two board members and one board member emails the other member and there was no response back. That is not a Sunshine Law violation, the violation occurs when I response. If two incumbent members of the city council is attending an event and they both are talking about city business, there is nothing wrong with each of them talking about city business. But if it becomes a back-and-forth discussion amongst an audience and questions are asked at that event, that’s where you run into a Sunshine Law violation. Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: If there is a public record request sent to one of the board members, we would coordinate and work with the city clerk as opposed to responding directly to them ourselves, correct? City Attorney: Correct, you should definitely contact the city clerk. Sunshine Public Records Ethics - 2022 Plantation Advisory Boards (00490708xC4B6A).pdf 4. Presentation by Administration on Board Duties and Expectations Carole Morris gave a presentation on the board duties and expectations. SEE ATTACHED PRESENTATION Joel Feingold: Will you be sending out the first assignment soon, so we can review it? Carole Morris: We will get it out to you soon. Joel Feingold: That’s good. Some municipalities that I have read about, they’re attacking lawn watering in some very interesting ways and saving a huge amount of water. I am going to suggest to the board that we follow one of Kerry thoughts which is, if we want to share any information or articles on this subject, we should send it through Carole or April? Carole Morris: Please send it to me and I will take care of sending it out to the board. Again, the key is we don’t want to get into dialogue. Most of the time, when I email

you all, it’s going to look like I’d emailed myself. I will email myself and blind copy all of you, so if anyone does hit the reply all button it will only come back to me. Joel Feingold: That would be great! The reason why I spent so much time on the nuances of the Sunshine Law. I have found from past work that the amount of information needing to get shared and filed, are so vast to do at a meeting and then have a conversation about it. So being able to move this information around so each of us can prepare will really help us do a better job. Carole Morris: One of the nice things about bringing this ordinance to you at this stage is, if you want to have more detailed conversations about it, this is not immediately scheduled to go on the council’s agenda. So we can spend some time working on this. Joel Feingold: More thoughts anyone? Julie Long: I just want to share that the South Florida Water Management is requesting public comments on their sea level rise and flood resiliency draft, they have extended the deadline until January 28th. The draft is an informative report and since we are focusing on water there are initial things, I wanted people to be aware of, we can look at it and make comments, as we see fit. That all I wanted to say about that. Carole Morris: Okay Joel Feingold: Is everyone comfortable with just reading it on their own, if you have not already? Carole Morris: We are here so you can feel free to reach out, you have everyone contact information in your packet. Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board 01242022.pdf PUBLIC COMMENTS Joel Feingold: Are there any public comments? Julie Long: Just for clarification, you said our meeting will be the 2 nd Monday of each month? The next meeting will be on February 14th. Carole Morris: Yes, ma’am! Our next meeting is February 14 th at 630pm. April will be sending out a calendar. If you are going to do a rotating chair for the next few months, we will identify the meeting days and who is the next chair will be. So, if someone does have something unforeseen come up, if you will reach out to myself or the city clerk’s office so we can arrange to shuffle the chair. As a general rule, you will get agenda in a timely manner. But if you find

you are unable to attend a meeting. If you would be kind enough to notify one of us so we can make sure we will have a quorum in attendance. Joel Feingold: One thing that just occur to me, Carole was going to ask us to introduce ourselves before I asked to start with a rotating chair. So let us introduce ourselves it will only take a minute. Tim Rivera: I work for DHL Express; my area of expertise is the transportation area more so in sustainability. My role at DHL is director of Fleet Management for the West, Central, South American and Caribbean. I think I will be able to provide a good amount of support and knowledge on how we can work towards a sustainable solution in the future. I have been with DHL for 23 years. Maria Oliva: I work for office here in Plantation before that I worked for AT&T. I have been living in Plantation since 1992. I am looking forward to this and I am happy to me here. It is nice to meet all of you. Mary Schwoebel: I am a professor at Nova Southeastern University; I teach peace building and conflict resolution. I worked in International Affirms in DC for 25 years. I moved here six years ago and I had purchased a house in Plantation 2 years ago but before that I lived in Boston. Ever since I moved to South Florida, I have been involved in environmental and climate change issues. I also teach those issues at the university and I am a social scientist. Guithele Ruiz-Nicholas: I have been a resident of Plantation for 19 years. Professionally I work for Broward College, I am a (inaudible) working in the Broward Up program. It is geared towards making education accessible and affordable to those are not able to attend college. We focus on the number of cities and zip codes etc. I am also the host of a television show, that airs and streams on Ruko every Saturday at 630pm. Sustainability and climate change is an issue that dear to my heart. I have seen the impact and I truly believe something is going on. I feel quite privilege to be a part of this advisory board and look forward to contributing, sharing and learning from all of you. Julie Long: I am a retired pediatric surgeon and have lived in Plantation since 1994. I have focused a lot on the environment. I am very excited to be on this advisory board, I think we have good work that needs to be done and particularly concerned about the house consequences and disaster potentials regarding to environmental issues. I am looking forward to working with all of you. Joel Feingold: I love the outdoors; I have a commitment to give back to the community. I have been a Plantation resident for 3 years and I just in engaging in it. I couldn’t be more excited to be servicing on a board. I have engaged in Civics in the past and serviced on a government study committee in Massachusetts. I had service for a short period of time as an elected town meeting member in Brooklyn, MA. I cannot wait to get into some of the issues and help the city out.

ADJOURNMENT Adjourn meeting at 7:53pm